Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum is a left-of-center labor group that promotes international advocacy campaigns and lobbying efforts to change U.S. trade policy. The group claims it advocates in favor of provisions within U.S. laws and trade agreements that will improve working conditions for manufacturers abroad that supply the United States. ¹

The International Labor Rights Forum was founded in 1986 and has been active in legal challenges to U.S. trade policy as well as securing provisions for international workers’ rights in trade policy in the United States with a focus on clothing manufacturing and agricultural workers. In 2020, the International Labor Rights Forum merged with Global Labor Justice, an advocacy group founded in 2017 that conducts organizing campaigns around the same issues. The group has since been referred to as either Global Labor Justice or the International Labor Rights Forum, or collectively as Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF). ^{2 1 3 4}

Background and History

The International Labor Rights Forum was founded in 1986. The group began organizing as an informal coalition of individuals in “human rights, labor, academic, and faith-based communities …to fight for the rights of workers in international trade.” ¹ In 1984, the group claimed a role in securing a provision in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) that tied U.S. trade benefits to working conditions in countries seeking U.S. assistance or preferential trade treatment. ¹

The group was incorporated in 1986 as the International Labor Rights Education and Research Fund, later shortened to the International Labor Rights Forum, or ILRF. The group has since continued to lobby on U.S. trade policy and to influence international treaties and conventions through participation in bodies of the United Nations, including the International Labour Organization. ¹

The ILRF has assisted in founding several affiliated organizations by spinning off programs and sections of the organization into standalone organizations. In 1994, the group helped found Rugmark, now known as Good Weave, an organization promoting working conditions for rug workers. In 2007, ILRF spun off its litigation practice to form International Rights Advocates as a new legal organization. In 2010, ILRF acquired SweatFree Communities, a project opposing the use of sweatshops in U.S. government procurement. In 2013, the ILRF became the fiscal sponsor for the U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP), a project to promote labor reforms for mostly agricultural workers in Latin America. ¹

Global Labor Justice Merger

In 2020, International Labor Rights Forum president Jennifer (JJ) Rosenbaum announced that the ILRF would merge with Global Labor Justice while continuing the existing brands of both organizations under the name, Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF). ²  

Global Labor Justice was formed in 2017 by organizers and lawyers in the U.S., Asia, and Latin America to promote legal activism and labor organizing along supply chains in the Americas and Asia. The press release announcing the merger stated that the COVID-19 pandemic had a “catastrophic effect on the health and livelihoods of more than 150 million workers in global supply chains” and further claimed that “a gender lens on global worker issues has been largely absent from employer and government responses. Migrant workers have also been stranded — both at home and in destination countries — ignored and left out of recovery and repatriation programs and used politically to drum up nationalism and xenophobia.” ²

1. “History.” Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum. Accessed September 23, 2024. https://laborrights.org/about/history
2. Rosenbaum, Jennifer. “ILRF and Global Labor Justice Are Joining Forces to Defend Worker Rights and Build Worker Power in the Global Economy.” Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum. July 1, 2020. Accessed September 23, 2024. https://laborrights.org/blog/202007/ilrf-and-global-labor-justice-are-joining-forces-defend-worker-rights-and-build-worker
3. “USLEAP.” Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum. Accessed September 23, 2024. https://laborrights.org/programs/usleap
4. “About.” Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum. Accessed September 23, 2024. https://laborrights.org/about