Reimagining the future of work - towards a right to shape AI - Panellists

Assistant Professor, Utrecht University 

Halefom Abraha is an Assistant Professor at the International and European Law (IER) Department of the Utrecht School of Law. Halefom is a member of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) and the Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE). His research and teaching interests focus on the intersection between law, digitalisation, and labour - specifically, how new digital technologies change work and how legal frameworks respond to protect workers' rights while enabling innovation. 

Assistant General Secretary

Kate Bell is Assistant General Secretary and supports Paul Nowak in leading the TUC. 

Kate works with external stakeholders on behalf of the TUC and is responsible for inter-union relations. She also leads on internal TUC matters. She represents the TUC on the government’s Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, and was formerly a member of the Low Pay Commission. 

Kate joined the TUC in 2016 as the organisation’s head of economics, international and employment rights department, where she worked on the furlough scheme, the TUC’s campaign for a £15 minimum wage, and stronger worker bargaining rights.  Before joining the TUC, Kate worked as Head of Policy and Public Affairs for a local authority, for the Labour Party, and for the charities Child Poverty Action Group and Gingerbread. 

Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law and Development at McGill University

Adelle Blackett holds an LLM and doctorate in law from Columbia University, civil law and common law degrees from McGill University, and a BA in History from Queen’s University.  A Titular Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, her recent publications include a co-edited volume in the IACL’s ius comparatum series on Critical Approaches to Contemporary Slavery, special issues of the International Labour Review and the American Journal of International Law (Unbound) on Transnational Futures of International Labour Law, and an award winning manuscript entitled Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labour Law (Cornell University Press). Internationally, she has been the principal architect of ILO Convention No. 189 and Recommendation No. 201, prepared a draft Haitian labour code, and most recently was appointed Senior Advisor to the Director-General of the ILO.  In Canada, she has chaired the Employment Equity Act Review Task Force, served as a Quebec human rights and youth rights commissioner, and chaired the Human Rights Experts Panel of the federal Court Challenges Program.  She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, an Advocate Emeritus of the Barreau du Québec and recipient of its Mérite Christine Tourigny.  She has been awarded honorary doctorates from Queen’s University, UC Louvain and Simon Fraser University, and has been honoured both with the Bob Hepple Lifetime Achievement Award in Labour Law and the Chief Justice Bora Laskin Award for Distinguished Contributions to Canadian Labour Law. 

Professor of Practice; Executive Director, Center for Labor and a Just Economy, Harvard Law School  

Sharon Block is a Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School.  Prior to returning to Harvard, she led the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in President Joe Biden’s White House.  She also served as a senior advisor to the Biden-Harris Transition team, providing advice to the policy, OMB and Labor Agency Review teams on labor, worker empowerment and regulatory policy and participating in briefing and hearing preparation for nominees. 

From 2017 to 2021, Block led CLJE.  During this time, she launched the Clean Slate for Worker Power project, which is a comprehensive policy initiative focused on fundamental redesign of labor law with the aspiration to enable all working people to create the collective economic and political power necessary to build an equitable economy and politics.  

For twenty years, Block has held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. In the Obama Administration, she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor and Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. In 2012, President Obama appointed her to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board. While serving in the Obama White House as Senior Public Engagement Advisor for Labor and Working Families, Block led the historic White House Summit on Worker Voice, which explored ways for workers to fully participate in their economic future. At the President's direction, Block also conducted a series of regional worker voice summits across the country.  Prior to the Obama Administration, she was senior counsel to the Senate HELP committee under Senator Edward Kennedy, playing a central role in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act.  

Block writes frequently on labor, employment and administrative law topics.  She is a senior contributor to OnLabor.org and her opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Fortune, The American Prospect, The Hill, USA Today, Forbes, and Newsweek. 

Joshua Cohen is a political philosopher. He has written on issues of democratic theory, freedom of expression, religious freedom, political equality, democracy and digital technology, good (and not so good) jobs, human rights, and global justice. His books include On Democracy (with Joel Rogers); Democracy and Associations (with Joel Rogers); Philosophy, Politics, Democracy; Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals; and The Arc of the Moral Universe and Other Essays. He is co-editor of the Norton Introduction to Philosophy. Cohen taught at MIT and Stanford, is currently a Senior Faculty Director at Apple University, and is Distinguished Senior Fellow in Law, Philosophy, and Political Science at University of California, Berkeley. Cohen held the Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Professorship in 2002-3; was Tanner Lecturer at UC Berkeley in 2007; gave the Comte Lectures at LSE in 2012; and the Annual Lecture on Ethics and AI at Oxford in 2024. He is co-editor-in-chief of Boston Review. 

Anne Evans Estabrook Professor of Employment Relations and Dispute Resolution, Cornell University 

Virginia Doellgast is the Anne Evans Estabrook Professor of Employment Relations and Dispute Resolution in the ILR School at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the comparative political economy of labor markets and labor unions, inequality, precarity, and democracy at work. She is currently studying the impact of digitalization and AI on job quality in in the telecommunications and game development industries. She is author of Exit, Voice, and Solidarity (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Disintegrating Democracy at Work (Cornell University Press, 2012); co-editor of International and Comparative Employment Relations (Sage, 2021)and Reconstructing Solidarity (Oxford University Press, 2018); and co-editor of the ILR Review. 

Professor of Labour Law in the School of Law and Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded research project The Rule of Law at Work: Employment Law Enforcement and Compliance 

Ruth Dukes is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and an emeritus member of the Young Academy of Scotland. Since 2024, she is Vice President of the Institute of Employment Rights. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Labour Law Research Network, the Adapt International Scientific Committee, the Project Board of the Jimmy Reid Foundation, and the Editorial Board of the Spanish Labour Law and Employment Relations Journal. 

Professor Dukes joined the University of Glasgow in 2005 having graduated from the University of Edinburgh, the Humboldt University in Berlin and the London School of Economics. In 2011/12 she was an Early Career Fellow of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and a MacCormick Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. In 2022, she was the Innis Christie Visiting Professor at Dalhousie University in Canada. From 2018 until 2023, she held a European Research Council Starting Grant which funded the project Work on Demand: Contracting for Work in a Changing Economy. Dukes is the author of The Labour Constitution: the Enduring Idea of Labour Law (Oxford University Press 2014) and, with Wolfgang Streeck, Democracy at Work: Contract, Status and Post-Industrial Justice (Polity 2023). 

Associate Professor, Department of Labour Law and Law of Social Security, University of Vienna; Director General, Austrian Ministry for Labour

Martin Gruber-Risak is Associate Professor at the Department of Labour Law and Law of Social Security at the University of Vienna/Austria and since October 2025 Director General at the Austrian Ministry for Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection responsible for Labour Law and the Central Labour Inspectorate. With a rich career spanning domestic and international legal stages, including the University of Passau in Germany and the University of Otago in New Zealand, Martin’s expertise encompasses both Austrian, European Union and comparative labour law. 

Vice President, Data Labelers Association 

Since 2018, Ephantus has thrived in the field of data annotation, renowned for his precision and ability to tackle complex datasets. His passion for innovation and dedication to uplifting fellow data labelers drive his role as vice president. With a forward-thinking approach, Ephantus is committed to creating opportunities for growth and fostering a supportive community for all members. 

Digital Rights Activist and the founding President of the Data Labelers Association of Kenya (DLA)

Joan Kinyua is a Digital Rights Activist and the founding President of the Data Labelers Association of Kenya (DLA), a grassroots organization advocating for the rights and well-being of workers behind AI systems. She is committed to advancing fairness, transparency, and ethical practices in AI development. Through her work with DLA, Joan champions the protection of digital workers, pushes for inclusive and accountable AI policies, and brings visibility to the critical labor powering AI. By combining strategic advocacy and collective action, she ensures that marginalized voices shape the future of technology and labor justice. 

Professor Lamine is a legal scholar specialising in social law (UCLouvain, Harvard) and a philosopher (UCLouvain). She is a professor of Belgian, European, and International Labor and of Socialsecurity Law at UCLouvain Law School, where she is a permanent member of the Atelier de droit social at CRIDES (Centre de recherches droit, entreprise, société) and TED.  She is also one of the founders of the Clinique juridique Rosa Parks pour les droits humains at UCLouvain. 

She has written on the regulation of labor relations within transnational corporations, the structural evolution of European collective bargaining systems, social protection of non-standard workers and in particular the challenges faced by freelancers and gig workers in the Global North. Auriane Lamine currently serves as the co-president of the School of Labor Studies of the University of Louvain.  

Kris Rose is a tech governance leader whose career has spanned roles in public sector institutions like the CIA, White House, and US Congress, and major companies like Meta and IBM.  He has led research programs at the intersection of technology and governance, and designed and operationalized AI-enabled initiatives to build more responsible, trusted technology. These have included the development of Meta’s Oversight Board and large-scale deliberative public consultations across dozens of countries that have shaped AI and platform policies.  
 
Rose now leads efforts to govern enterprise-wide AI transformation at IBM, focused on accelerating responsible adoption across IBM’s global footprint. He is a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations, holds a B.A. from Spring Arbor University, an MPP from the McCourt School, and will begin a DPhil program at Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government in fall 2026.

Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry, Harvard Law School 

Benjamin Sachs is the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School and a leading expert in the field of labor law and labor relations. He is also faculty director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy. Professor Sachs teaches courses in labor law and employment law, and his writing focuses on union organizing and unions in American politics.  Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 2008, Professor Sachs was the Joseph Goldstein Fellow at Yale Law School.  From 2002-2006, he served as Assistant General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Washington, D.C., and from 1999-2002 he was an attorney at Make the Road by Walking, a membership-based community organization in Brooklyn, NY. Professor Sachs graduated from Yale Law School in 1998, and served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His writing has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the New York Times and elsewhere.  In 2007, Professor Sachs received the Yale Law School teaching award.  He is also the 2013 recipient of the Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence at Harvard Law School, and the 2015 winner of the Charles Fried Intellectual Diversity Award.  

Deputy General Secretary, European Trade Union Confederation

Isabelle Schömann, has been elected Deputy General Secretary at the ETUC 15. Congress in Berlin, May 2023.  

Isabelle heads ETUC policies on Democracy at Work with a focus on Workers’ Information, Consultation and Participation, on Legal Affairs with a focus on Trade Unions, Workers’ and Human Rights, the ETUC legislative, legal and litigation strategy (the ETUCLEX), on Gender Equality, on Single Market, and on Human Centric Digitalisation with a focus on Artificial Intelligence in the world of work. Isabelle served as ETUC Confederal Secretary between 2019 to 2023. Key achievements in setting and implementing ETUC agenda materialise in her leadership in Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, European Works Councils, Artificial Intelligence, Right to Disconnect; in guaranteeing access for self-employed to collective bargaining, on fighting Gender-based violence, in equipping the ETUC with Human Rights Legal and Strategic Litigation, in positioning the ETUC on the Social Progress Protocol, on EU Open Strategic Autonomy, Industrial Strategy that deliver for workers, on sustainable and inclusive EU Competition Policy. 

Isabelle, affiliated to the DGB, is member of IG Metall. As former ETUI researcher, she was ETUI staff representative and member of the ETUC works council, member of the FGTB. Isabelle is a former Principal Adviser to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board of the European Commission, worked as ETUI senior researcher and as research fellow at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB - Germany). Isabelle holds a postgraduate degree in Social and Labour Law from the Sorbonne University in Paris (France). 

Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University 

Valerio De Stefano, PhD, is Full Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where he is the inaugural Canada Research Chair in Innovation, Law and Society. Before joining Osgoode in 2022, he was the BOF-ZAP Professor of Labour Law at KU Leuven and previously served as an officer of the International Labour Organization in Geneva. He holds law degrees from Bocconi University, where he also worked as a postdoctoral researcher. 

His research focuses on labour law, platform work, artificial intelligence, algorithmic management, and labour protection in new forms of work. He is General Editor of the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal and Editorial Adviser to the International Labour Review. He is the co-author, with Antonio Aloisi, of Your Boss Is an Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and Labour (Hart, 2022). His work has been cited by courts, governments, international organisations, social partners, and media worldwide. He has advised institutions including the ILO, European Parliament, Eurofound, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and national governments, and is a member of the OECD’s Network of Experts on AI. 

Damon Wells '58 Professor of Political Science & ISPS Fellow at Yale University and Distinguished Researcher at the Ethics for AI Institute in Oxford. 

Hélène Landemore is a political theorist and the Damon Wells '58 Professor of Political Science at Yale University. She is also a Fellow at the Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), where she leads a program on Citizens' Assemblies, and a Distinguished Researcher at the Institute for Ethics in AI in Oxford.  She is the author of Democratic Reason (2013), Open Democracy (2020), and Politics Without Politicians (2026). Her research has been featured in media such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Nation, Slate, Foreign Policy, Boston Review,  Project Syndicate, l’Humanité, Libération, Le Monde, and on The Ezra Klein Show.  In 2022-23 she was a member of the governance committee of the French Citizens' Convention on End-of-Life Issues. In 2026 she joined the Committe on Foresight and Collective Intelligence of the French company EDF.

PhD Candidate,  Tilburg Law School 

Rakshita is a lawyer by training and a law and technology researcher. She is a PhD candidate at Tilburg Law School where she focuses on comparative study of regulating algorithmic discrimination in administrative decision-making. Rakshita completed her Master’s in law (BCL) from the University of Oxford with a focus on Law and CS and regulation of emerging tech, where she was also worked as a researcher on Algorithmic Management at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, for the project ‘iMANAGE - Rethinking Employment Law for a World of Algorithmic Management’. Her research focused upon law and policy frameworks for regulation of algorithmic management using principles from data protection law, labour law and equality law, specifically from a comparative lens of Europe and Global South. Rakshita has also taught Regulation of Internet Technologies for Stanford University. Previously, she has worked on tech regulation and human rights issues in India with the Centre for Communication Governance and as a legislative assistant in the Parliament of India. She has collaborated and consulted with various international organisations and research groups such as the UNDP, Freedom House, ISOC, OPBP, Human Rights Watch and UN IGF on issues of online speech, internet shutdowns, data protection, digital ID, content moderation and regulation of AI. 

Head of the Labour and Social Security Law Department, Hugo Sinzheimer Institute 

Amélie Sutterer-Kipping has worked at the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute (HSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation since February 2022, becoming Head of the Labour and Social Security Law Department in 2024. Amélie Sutterer-Kipping studied law at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She wrote her doctoral thesis at Georg August University Göttingen and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne as part of a cotutelle programme. Her thesis, for which she was awarded the Franco-German Dissertation Prize, deals with the labour and social law protection of low-income self-employed workers in Germany and France. 

Amélie Sutterer-Kipping teaches European Labour and Economic Law at the European Academy of Labour at the University of Frankfurt, and serves as an honorary judge at the Munich Labour Court. 

Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology 

Hilde Weerts is assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, where she researchers the challenges that come along with putting responsible AI into practice, particularly in relation to algorithmic fairness and non-discrimination. Her research is highly interdisciplinary, at the intersection of computer science and law. She is also one of the maintainers of Fairlearn, an open-source, community-driven project aimed at helping data scientists assess and improve the fairness of AI systems.