Wednesday, March 20 | Wasserstein Hall, Room 3016 | 12:15pm – 1:15pm ET
We’re excited to present the third talk in a semester-long series, Supply Chain Capitalism: Legal Regimes and Worker Power. Desiree LeClercq is an Employment and Labor Law Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations
Global trade policy is profoundly mistaken for neoliberalism. Decades of multilateral and bilateral trade demonstrate how state-led trade negotiations and enforcement focused solely on market liberalization drown out the voices of vulnerable communities, to the detriment of the working class and the equitable distribution of trade gains. This talk will offer a counter-vision of global trade in which negotiations and enforcement create a platform for workers to assert their voices and build their power. The Biden administration’s “worker-centered” trade policy moves the needle towards a new global trade framework capable of building such power, but the remnants of prior policies loom large and thus undermine the potential emancipation from neoliberalism.
This series of talks is a joint effort of the Program on Law and Political Economy and the Center for Labor and a Just Economy. It will examine law’s role in structuring global supply chains. Across four installments, we will discuss how contemporary modes of supply, production, and capital ownership – or Supply Chain Capitalism – impact the distribution of power and resources between the global north and the global south and between capital and labor. We will pay particular attention to law’s role in enabling, sustaining or potentially disrupting these distributive and relational patterns.
All are welcome! For those who plan to join via the livestream:
Zoom links will be available on this page at least 24 hours before each session. Please see further event details below.
