KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 2024

Stijn Broecke

Stijn Broecke is a Senior Economist at the OECD, where he leads the organisation’s Future of Work Initiative. He currently manages a large research programme on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the labour market. Stijn holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Economics from Royal Holloway, University of London. He has 20 years experience working in government (Mozambique Ministry of Health, UK Civil Service) and international organisations (African Development Bank and OECD). He is also a Research Fellow at IZA.

Heejung Chung

Professor Heejung Chung (she/her) is a labour market and welfare state researcher and Professor of Work and Employment, at King’s Business School and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s College London, UK. She has been conducting labour market research for over two decades, focusing largely on topics around labour market gender inequalities, flexibility at work, home/remote working, work-life balance, division of unpaid work/care, and other work-family topics. She has a keen interest in exploring the role welfare state policies, cultural norms, and other contexts play therein to find policy solutions in tackling issues in the labour market. She has worked with a wide range of national governments (including the UK, Italy, Korean, Germany, Estonia) and international organisations (including the European Commission, UN, ILO, OECD).  Her most recent works include the book The Flexibility Paradox: why flexible working leads to (self-) exploitation, (Policy Press), and the report Flexible working arrangements and gender equality in Europe (European Commission).

Richard B. Freeman

Richard B. Freeman holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at the Harvard Law School. He received the Mincer Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Society of Labor Economics in 2006. In 2007 he was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics. In 2011 he was appointed Frances Perkins Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. In 2016 he received the Global Equity Organization (GEO) Judges Award, honoring exceptional contribution towards the promotion of global employee share ownership. Also in 2016, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. Publications include: Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization, Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the 21st Century, What Workers Want, What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo American World, International Differences in the Business Practices & Productivity of Firms, Science and Engineering Careers in the United States, Reforming the Welfare State: Recovery and Beyond in Sweden, Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-based Stock Options, The Citizen’s Share: Putting Ownership Back Into Democracy, and U.S. Engineering in a Global Economy.  Professor Freeman’s research interests include the job market for scientists and engineers; the transformation of scientific ideas into innovations, Chinese and Korean labor markets; the effects of AI and robots on the job market; and forms of labor market representation and employee ownership.

Manuela Geleng

Manuela Geleng works for the European Commission where she is currently the Director for Jobs and Skills in the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion. She is responsible for the Future of Work file as well as Youth Employment, the implementation of the Skills Agenda , Vocational Education and Training policies and the European Year of Skills.

Luis Gil y Gil

José Luis Gil y Gil is PhD (1991) and won the special award of PhD of the University of Alcalá and the prize for the best doctoral thesis of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (1991-1992). Since September 2011, he is Professor of Labour Law at the University of Alcalá. He has done extended research stays at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, the Université de Bordeaux, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main.

Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick

Dr. Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick is a Senior Lecturer in Birkbeck Business School, t at Birkbeck, University of London.  Her book, Towards a European System of Industrial Relations? The ETUC in the Twenty-First Century , Brussels: ETUI, 2024  (with Richard Hyman) was published in 2024. She also recently published  ‘Global Institutions and Governance’, (2022) in Mense-Petermann, U, Welskopp, T and Zaharieva, A, (eds.), in In Search of the Global Labour Market, Leiden: Brill. A second edition of her book, Trade Unions in Western Europe: Hard Times; Hard Choices (with Richard Hyman), was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. Her research interests include European and international employment relations, trade unionism, equality (especially race and disability), international organisations and international governance.

Richard Hyman

Richard Hyman is Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics and Founding Editor of the European Journal of Industrial Relations. He also founded and coordinates the annual Industrial Relations in Europe Conference (IREC). He has written extensively on the themes of industrial relations, trade unionism, industrial conflict and labour market policy, and is author of a dozen books as well as some two hundred journal articles and book chapters. His comparative study Understanding European Trade Unionism: Between Market, Class and Society (Sage, 2001) is widely cited by scholars working in this field. His book Trade Unions in Western Europe: Hard Times, Hard Choices (with Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick), was published by Oxford University Press in October 2013 with a second edition in June 2018. His Concise Introduction to Employment Relations is due to be published in 2025 by Edward Elgar.

Sara Lafuente

Sara Lafuente is Senior Researcher at the ETUI specialised in democracy at work and European industrial relations. She holds a PhD on Law and Political Science by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. She has lectured at ULB, where she is currently an associate researcher, and has authored number of publications on her fields of expertise. She regularly advises practitioners and stakeholders on these matters, and is a member of the editing committee of Travail, Emploi, Formation, and a co-founder of the interdisciplinary Democratizing Work global network and the Spanish Plataforma por la Democracia Económica.

Lourdes Mella Mendez

Full Professor of Labour Law and Social Security at the Faculty of Law, in the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain). She is the General Coordinator of an International Network (CIELO Laboral: www.cielolaboral.com) which is made up of experts from more than 35 countries, in Europe and Latin America.

Luis Rodrigo Morales

Luis Rodrigo is Director of Policy and ILO Coordination at the International Organization of Employers. As such, he is involved in different policy areas, such as Industrial Relations, ILO standards and supervisory mechanisms, the future of work, social protection, business and human rights, and sectoral policies, among others. Before joining the IOE, from 2013 to March 2019, he served as Minister of Labour Affairs in Europe for the Mexican Government, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. As such, he was responsible of providing legal advice to the government on international labour regulation and policy. He represented the government in various international forums such as: the International Labour Organization (ILO) the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization (WTO), the G20, the International Organization for Migration (OIM), and the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). As government representative, he served as regional coordinator for the Group of the Americas at the ILO for the period 2015-2016 and as President of the Government Group of the ILO for the period 2016-2017. He has participated in various negotiation processes regarding labour policy at the international level, such as the revision of the Multinational Enterprises Declaration of the ILO and the General principles and operational guidelines for fair recruitment, among others. He has also successfully conducted various ILO meetings, such as the Meeting of Experts to adopt Guidelines on Decent Work and Socially Responsible Tourism, the Committee to adopt the methodology to measure SDG 8.8.1 on Employment and the Sectoral Advisory Bodies of the ILO, among others.

Georg Johannes Picot

Georg Picot is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen in Norway. He is specialized in comparative political economy, with a focus on labour market issues. He recently conducted a research project, funded by the Research Council of Norway, on the politics of regulating low-wage employment. His research has appeared in renowned journals, such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, British Journal of Industrial Relations, and Socio-Economic Review. He received his PhD from the University of Milan, and has worked at the Universities of Heidelberg, Oxford, and Manchester.

Viktorija Proskurovska

Labour Market Intelligence Manager at the WEC (World Employment Confederation) She holds an MBA and BA in Analytical Economics. Her academic background is enriched by extensive work experience in several European trade associations. Her core expertise is two-fold: analysis of the European macro-economic and monetary policies, broader economic context, as well as management, analysis and visualisation of large volumes of sectoral data.

Adrián Todolí-Signes

Dr. Adrián Todolí-Signes is a full professor of Labor Law at the University of Valencia. Degree in Economics and Law. He has published more than a hundred academic outcomes (including articles in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, edited books and monographs). He has extensive experience in Regulating the Digital Economy from a legal and economic perspective. He has published several articles in international journals and a books on Platform work and algorithmic management and has been invited to give lectures in platform economy at universities in several countries and at international startup forums. One in particular that worth to be mentioned is titled “Making algorithms safe for workers: occupational risks associated with work managed by artificial intelligence” and the book published by HART Labour Law and Economic Policy. How employment rights improve the economy. Winner of the award for the best young lawyer awarded by the Spanish Labor Forum (FORELAB). Winner of the Prize for the Best Research in Labor Law granted by the Spanish Association of Labor and Social Security Law (AEDTSS) twice, in 2015 and 2016 on issues of dual professional training and evaluation of performance and compensation. As a national expert, he has collaborated with the European Commission on youth employment and Gig economy regulation (DG Employment) and he has been appointed expert on platform work by the ILO.

Manfred Weiss

Born 1940 in Southern Germany. 1960 – 1964 legal education at the universities of Freiburg and Berlin. 1965 – 66 Research Fellow at the Center of Law and Society at the University of California in Berkeley.  1974 – 1977 Full Professor of Civil Law and Labor Law at the University of Hamburg and 1977 – 2008 at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Since 2008 Professor emeritus. His main research topics have been German, European and international labor law. Visiting professor at many universities all over the world, in the USA particularly at the University of Florida, at the University of Pennsylvania, at the NYU (member of the Global Law Program) and at the University of Illinois. For many years consultant to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and to the European Union (EU).1990 – 1995  President of the German Association of Industrial Relations and 2000 – 2003 President of the International Industrial Relations Association (now renamed International Labor and Employment Research Association). He also served as German correspondent to the NAA. He holds several honorary doctorates and in 2015 the international Labor Law Research Network(LLRN) endowed him the prestigious Award for outstanding contribution to labor law. He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS).

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