#7 June 21, 2023

« The Need for a Universal Job Guarantee. Discussing the launch of the United Nations Special Report by Olivier De Schutter »

Time: 7am San Francisco | 8am Mexico City | 9am Bogota | 10am Santiago-NYC-Montréal | 4pm Paris–Johannesburg | 7.30pm New Delhi | 9pm Jakarta | 12am Sydney

Location: online (click here to register)

Organizers: #DemocratizingWork and OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative

Speakers: Olivier De Schutter (Professor UCLouvain and Sciences Po Paris, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights), Jean Drèze (Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Ranchi University), Rania Antonopoulos (Senior Scholar and Program Director, Levy Economics Institute, Bard College)

Chair: Adelle Blackett (McGill University, #DW Core Group member)

In this Workshop, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof. Olivier De Schutter, will discuss a report he will present to the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 28th, explaining how the introduction of a job guarantee can contribute to the full realization of the right to work as an enforceable legal right. We will discuss the benefits of the Job Guarantee, both to the individual and the community, which make it an essential component of the “just transition” and of the new eco-social contract. In the footstep of our #DW core member and expert Pavlina Tcherneva, this workshop will provide an opportunity to highlight how the proposal of the Job Guarantee is central to the rethinking of the world of work around the three principles of the #DemocratizingWork Manifesto: democratizing, decommodifying, and decarbonizing.

Olivier De Schutter. Professor at UCLouvain and Sciences Po Paris, is since 2020 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. As an expert on economic and social rights in the context of economic globalization, he was formerly a member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (2015-2020) and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (2008-2014).

Jean Drèze. Development economist, is currently Visiting Professor at Ranchi University in India. He has made wide-ranging contributions to development economics and public policy, particularly to India. His recent books include An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions (with Amartya Sen) and Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for Everyone. Jean is also active in various campaigns for economic and social rights. His work helped to design some critical social legislation in India, including the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Rania Antonopoulos. Ph.D. in economics from the New University School for Social Research. She served as Alternate Minister of Labor of Greece, Member of Parliament, and Ambassador of Greece to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As a Senior Scholar, she led a team of Levy Institute researchers studying the impact on poverty and gender equality of employment guarantee policies in South Africa, India, and Greece. She developed a new statistical measure of Income and Time Poverty, LIMTIP, which exposes the inequalities created by time deficits in household income and living standards.

Participation in this event is free, but registration is needed: click here to register.