Staff


ILRF is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.

Our staff our dedicated to supporting the rights of workers and to building power for workers through a variety of strategies.  You can view contact information for each staff by visiting our Contact Us page.

Staff

 
Consultants

 

Bama Athreya, Executive Director
Bama Athreya is the Executive Director of the International Labor Rights Forum. Dr. Athreya joined ILRF in early 1998, just after returning from a two-year assignment in Cambodia as the AFL-CIO's Country Representative. While in Cambodia she directed worker education and labor law training programs and conducted extensive research on the problems of women workers and on child labor. She is a cultural anthropologist, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She spent three years in Indonesia, first as a State Department official and later as an independent researcher, and wrote her thesis on Indonesia's labor movement. She has also lived and worked in China, Taiwan and India. [interested in Ms. Athreya speaking in your community? see the ILRF Speakers' Bureau]

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Jeffrey Becker, Program Officer
 
Jeffrey Becker joined ILRF in the summer of 2010, and serves as program officer for the organization’s work in China. Jeffrey holds a Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University, and his dissertation examines the rise in labor protests among migrant workers in China. As part of his dissertation research, Jeffrey spent thirteen months in China, interviewing migrant workers about their experiences in the workplace in Beijing, Guangdong, and Jiangsu provinces.
 
Jeffrey has taught Chinese Politics for Penn State University, and classes on the political economy of trade at the George Washington University’s Honors Program. His research has previously appeared in edited volumes on Chinese politics, as well as The Journal of Chinese Political Science.
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Brian Campbell, Director of Policy and Legal Programs
Brian Campbell serves as a staff attorney, working to promote enforcement of existing laws to protect worker rights, and the development of new legal instruments. Brian is also working with local partners in China developing and implementing labor law training programs for Chinese labor law practitioners. Brian began working with ILRF as a law clerk in 2001 and was hired as a full time attorney upon graduation from law school in 2004. While in law school, he worked at the Global March Against Child Labor in New Delhi, India for six months in 2002 as a project officer. He is a graduate from the George Washington University Law School and the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs where he received a Masters of Arts in International Development Studies. Brian is licensed to practice law in the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia.

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Bjorn Claeson, Director of SweatFree Communities

Bjorn Skorpen Claeson, Ph.D., Director of SweatFree Communities, was lead organizer of PICA's Bangor Clean Clothes Campaign, a national model for community-based anti-sweatshop activism, from 1996 to 2005. Claeson is a cofounder of SweatFree Communities and became SweatFree Communities' first staff person in July 2003. He is the recipient of the Maine Initiatives Social Landscape Artist Award 2006 and the Dirigo Social Movement Leader Award in 2004.
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Liana Foxvog, National Organizer of SweatFree Communities

Liana Foxvog joined SweatFree Communities as National Organizer in 2004. By leading workshops and strategy sessions, she has played a critical role in helping launch new grassroots campaigns for sweatshop-free purchasing. Her presentations have included venues such as the U.S. Social Forum, the international Fair Trade Action Network convening meeting, and dozens of colleges. In 2003-2004, she worked with American Friends Service Committee in New Hampshire, educating high school students about globalization and "bird-dogging" presidential candidates to support fairness in trade agreements; National Public Radio, among other media, featured a story about the creative youth-led actions. Liana has a B.A. in Political Science and an M.S. in Labor Studies. She is a part-time lecturer at University of Massachusetts on Labor and the Global Economy and volunteers as a Spanish interpreter for immigrant rights and social justice organizations.
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Jessica Jones, Programs Assistant
Jessica Jones began at ILRF in November 2009. Prior to ILRF, Jessica gained experience in labor rights at a law firm where she assisted victims of employment discrimination throughout the United States. Jessica graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in International Studies and Psychology. She has interned for the Leadership Council for Human Rights the Anti-Defamation League, and Global Village of Beijing. She is conversant in Mandarin Chinese, and is currently learning Portuguese.

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Timothy Newman, Campaigns Director
Tim Newman began at ILRF in September 2006 and works on ILRF advocacy campaigns, particularly the Trade Union Violence, Firestone and Cocoa campaigns. Tim graduated in May 2006 from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts where he majored in Sociology and International Development. In addition to anti-war organizing, he helped found the Clark chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, and helped launch the CAN Coke campaign, which is working to get Coke products off Clark’s campus. He has done internships with Food & Water Watch, Africa Action, Facing History and Ourselves and the National Society for Human Rights in Namibia. [interested in Mr. Newman speaking in your community? see the ILRF Speakers' Bureau]

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Michelle Petrotta, Program Officer
Michelle Petrotta joined ILRF in December 2009 to lead work relating to labor rights in Latin America and the Rights for Working Women campaign. From 2007-2009, Michelle worked with the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Share Foundation, as a Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellow, where she conducted research and policy advocacy on trade, labor, development and human rights issues throughout Latin America. For the first year of the fellowship, she lived in El Salvador, and worked alongside organized rural communities to develop advocacy strategies to incorporate human rights into development. She is a graduate of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and is licensed to practice law in the state of New York.

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Trina Tocco, Deputy Director
Trina Tocco began at ILRF in February 2005 and focuses on ILRF's work in the garment and food industries. Directly after college, she spent a year organizing with the Service Employees International Union. Other labor movement experience includes working with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). Tocco is currently pursuing a Masters degree from Michigan State University for Supply Chain Management.  She is a 2003 graduate of Western Michigan University, with degrees in Environmental Studies and Nonprofit Administration. [interested in Ms. Tocco speaking in your community? see the ILRF Speakers' Bureau]

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Laura Markle Downton, Development Consultant

Laura Markle Downton joined ILRF in the summer of 2010 after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity, specializing in Women's Studies.  She focuses on development and outreach projects for ILRF including coordination of the Speaker's Bureau and promotion of ILRF's advocacy campaigns.  Prior to her graduate studies, she worked in the areas of employment justice and legal services with grassroots organizations in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. She is also a Midwest Academy trained organizer.

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Pharis Harvey, Senior Consultant
Pharis Harvey, a founder of the International Labor Rights Forum, serves as Senior Consultant to ILRF. Mr. Harvey served as Executive Director from 1990 to 2001. Prior to joining the Fund, Harvey, spent twelve years with the North American Coalition for Human Rights in Korea, based in Washington, DC. This followed many years of work in Asia under the sponsorship of the United Methodist Church and various ecumenical bodies, to support the efforts of workers and community organizations to defend their human rights. His most recent post in Asia was as Consultant on Economic Justice to the Christian Conference in Asia, from 1975-79. Harvey is the author of Trading Away the Future: Child Labor in India's Export Industries (1994) and editor of several studies of labor and peoples movements in Asia, including People Toiling Under Pharaoh: MNCs in Asia (1976) and No Room in the Inn: Asia's Minorities (1978). He has also published many articles in the United States, Japanese, and Korean journals. In October 1996, Harvey received the prestigious Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award for "Lifetime Achievement" in developing labor rights law and defending labor rights internationally.

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Robin Romano, Photography Consultant
As a writer/director/cameraman, Robin Romano has worked in Canadian news programming and international documentary television. His most recent projects have been Death of a Slave Boy, a two-hour special shot in Pakistan for European broadcast and Globalization and Human Rights, hosted by Charlayne Hunter Gault for PBS. As a still photographer, Mr. Romano is represented by Alan Kaplan Studios. He has taught Advanced Cinematography at the Graduate Film Institute of NYU, was visiting instructor at Columbia Graduate Film School and has lectured at Rhode Island School of Design and the Oak Institute for International Human Rights at Colby College.

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