News

This fall LER welcomes its second class of Labor and Global Workers’ Rights (LGWR) students.

The cohort includes seven students from India, Brazil, South Korea, and the United States.  They are embarking on a 12-month program in which they will learn about international labor standards and employment relations practices, women and work in the global economy, research and writing for labor practitioners, and labor in China. These mid-career labor unionists and professionals will spend part of the summer interning for US labor unions before returning to Penn State to finalize their capstone projects and finish the program.

On August 15, just one week before the new students arrived, the first group of LGWR students graduated. They included Shirley Pryce, a domestic worker organizer from Jamaica; Michela Cirioni, an Italian unionist, and Zhihang Ruan, a labor researcher from China.

The incoming class includes:

• João Gabriel Buonavita (Brazil) who works with the largest labor federation in hise country, CUT. Focuses on organizing youth workers.
• Anjali Sinha (India) has worked with a range of labor groups in India, and also in the documentary film industry there.
• Hyunsu Hwang (South Korea) Is a teacher and works with the Korean teachers’ union, which is a member of Korea’s largest labor center, the KCTU.
• Irene Arellano (USA-California) has worked with different US labor unions and has conducted research on wage theft in southern California.
• Denny Monteiro (Brazil)  is doing the program part time. He is also doing the HRER program part time.
• Danna Jayne Seballos (USA-Pennsylvania) is also a part time student. She has been living in State College for over ten years and works with the Penn State World in Conversation project.