The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) is pleased to welcome Judy Gearhart as the organization’s new Executive Director following former director Bama Athreya’s transition to the Global Works Foundation.  ILRF will continue to strengthen its efforts to promote just and humane treatment for workers worldwide under the new leadership of Gearhart.

Gearhart has a long history of promoting labor rights and supporting grassroots worker organizing.  Most recently, Gearhart served as Program Director at Social Accountability International (SAI) where she developed and supervised training and outreach projects for workers, trade unions, human rights advocates, factory managers and government inspectors on voluntary systems for ensuring labor rights.  Prior to joining SAI, Gearhart worked on issues of democratization, women’s rights and labor rights for the Mexican organization SEDEPAC and with UNICEF and the International Labor Organization on child labor programs in Honduras.

Gearhart will work with ILRF’s staff to continue the organization’s long history of advocating for workers’ fundamental rights in partnership with grassroots organizations around the world.  Using a broad range of strategies from corporate campaigning to labor rights research to policy advocacy, ILRF will keep fighting to eliminate abuses such as child labor, forced labor, trafficking and discrimination while promoting the right to organize and collectively bargain, corporate accountability and building sweatfree communities globally.
 
Gearhart said, “Having known ILRF for more than 20 years, I am honored to have this opportunity to continue the organization’s mission to shape the policy debate, promote effective programs to ensure workers’ rights, and – most of all – to help strengthen the voice of workers around the world.  I look forward to connecting with ILRF’s network of partners and to further supporting their heroic efforts to raise the voice of workers around the world.”

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The International Labor Rights Forum is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.  For more information, please visit www.LaborRights.org.