Barbara Briggs and Charles Kernaghan are staff members of the National Labor Committee. The mission of the National Labor Committee is to help defend the human rights of workers in the global economy. The NLC investigates and exposes human and labor rights abuses committed by U.S. companies producing goods in the developing world.

The struggle for rule of law in the global economy–to ensure respect for the fundamental rights of the millions of workers producing goods for the U.S. market–has become the great new civil rights movement of our time.

The NLC’s work is helping to coalesce a new and diverse coalition that includes religious, labor, women’s, student, civil rights, solidarity, policy and grassroots groups to catalyze popular campaigns based on our original research to promote worker rights and pressure companies to end human and labor abuses.

The National Labor Committee views worker rights in the global economy as indivisible and inalienable human rights and we believe that now is the time to secure them for all on the planet. (read less) The struggle for rule of law in the global economy–to ensure respect for the fundamental rights of the millions of workers producing goods for the U.S. market–has become the great new civil rights movement of our time.

Garrett Brown is a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) who has conducted workplace health and safety inspections for the State of California (USA) for the last 17 years. He is the founder and volunteer coordinator of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network (MHSSN) based in Berkeley, California. The network of 400 occupational health professionals in North America (Canada, Mexico and the US) have conducted local-language trainings, technical assistance and support for worker groups in Mexico, Central American and the Caribbean, Indonesia and China since 1993. The MHSSN is an affiliate member of ANROEV — the Asia network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims.

Maggie Robbins has worked in occupational health education and advocacy for over 20 years. She has worked for and with unions, NGO’s, and university OHS worker education organizations, in the US, the UK, and South Africa. She currently works at the University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine, Ergonomics Program.

Rory O’Neill is editor of the UK-based Hazards magazine (www.hazards.org), Health, Safety and Environment officer for the International Federation of Journalists and a professor in the Occupational Health and Environment Research Group, University of Stirling.

Sanjiv Pandita, Executive Director of the Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC), has been on the front lines of labor activism in Asia for more than a decade. His expertise in Occupational Health and Safety has won international awards, including an award from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Sanjiv’s writings on grassroots movements and workers’ health issues have been published widely. Sanjiv has also authored two chapters on China and India in the 2006 book, ‘Challenging the Chip” on labor rights and environmental justice in the global electronics industry.