GLU Associate Fellows
GLU Associate Fellows are academics, researchers and trade union experts who work in an area of relevance to the GLU. Fellows participate actively in GLU activities like seminars or conferences, research, assessing publication proposals, and teaching on the GLU postgraduate programmes.
Existing members can propose associated fellowships. The annual council decides upon the affiliation of new associate fellows. Fellowships are offered on a three-year basis. There are no obligatory membership fees, but voluntary contributions are welcome.
The list of Associate Fellows
ILO Senior Economist and main editor of the ILO Global Wage Report
Mr. Patrick Belser is a Senior Economist at the International Labor Office (ILO) in Geneva, where he leads the work of the Wage Group and is the principal editor of the ILO Global Wage Report, an ILO flagship report published every two years since 2008. He has a D.Phil. in Economics from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, and has published several articles on minimum wages and wage policies, and co-authored a book on forced labor and human trafficking.
He also studied at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva, and at Columbia University in New York.
Economist and political scientist
Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherrer is a German economist and political scientist. He worked as a professor of globalization and politics and Executive Director of the International Center for Development and Decent Work at the University of Kassel. Currently a member of the editorial board for the GLU Working Papers.
Associate Professor at the Department of Labor and Human Resource Studies at the University of Cape Coast
Prof. Dr. Akua Britwum has researched and published in the area of gender and labor relations and is currently researching comparing the postcolonial development strategies of Ghana and Tanzania. Associate fellow of the Global Labor University and a member of the Steering Committee.
Co-founder and senior policy specialist at the Institute For Economic Justice (IEJ)
Neil Coleman is a Senior Policy Specialist and one of the Founding Co-Directors of IEJ. He has been an activist, strategist and policy researcher in the South African Mass Democratic Movement, United Democratic Front, Tripartite Alliance and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) since the late 1970s, and a COSATU official between 1989-2017. He participated in the constitutional negotiations, headed COSATU’s parliamentary office, was special advisor to Department of Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel and Strategies Co-ordinator in the COSATU Secretariat. Neil led Labor’s delegation in the national minimum wage negotiations 2015-2017.
Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences in the UK
Steve Davies is a Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences in the UK. He was previously a full-time official for a UK civil service trade union. He has taught in the GLU Masters program at Kassel University in Germany and contributed to its Working Papers.
Professor Emeritus of Sociology
Peter Evans is best known for his work on the comparative political economy of national development, exemplified by his 1995 book Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation and a recent series of articles on the “21st Century Developmental State.” For the past several years he has been researching the ways in which social movements can mobilize transnationally to build a “counter-hegemonic globalization.” Among these movements, the global labor movement is a key actor. See his 2008 article, “Is an Alternative Globalization Possible?” and his 2010 article “Is it Labor’s Turn to Globalize?”
Professor of Monetary Theory, Monetary Policy and International Monetary Relations
Trevor Evans has a PhD in economics from the University of London. He worked for many years at the Regional Center for Economic and Social Research (CRIES) in Managua, Nicaragua and, until he retired in 2015, was professor for monetary theory, monetary policy and international monetary relations at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. He is a member of the coordinating committee of the European Economists for an Alternative Economic Policy in Europe.
Researcher at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science
Dr. Michael Fichter is a researcher on the topic of Globalization of Labor Relations at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science.
He moved to Berlin after receiving his BA in History at Stanford University. Until the end of 2011 he taught political science and labor relations at the Freie Universitaet Berlin. From 2005 to 2013 he also taught a seminar on “Strategies of Multinational Corporations and Labour” in the GLU German Program. His research focus for the past several years has been on global labor relations, in particular on the impact of global framework agreements and transnational union networks.
Research Associate in Political Theory
Dr. Alexander Gallas is a research associate, section Political Theory, at the University of Kassel. Previously, he was a visting lecturer funded by the German Academic Exchange Service at Center for Global Workers’ Rights of the Pennsylvania State University. He has also taught at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, the Bremen University of Applied Sciences, the Humboldt University of Berlin, Liverpool John Moores University, Lancaster University and the Free University of Berlin. His degrees are from the University of Lancaster (an MA and a PhD in Sociology) and the Free University of Berlin (a Magister Artium in Philosophy).
Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Labor Law and Social Security Law of the Faculty of Law at the National Research University
Elena Gerasimova is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Labor Law and Social Security Law of the Faculty of Law at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Moscow, Russia). She is also Director of the Center for Social and Labor Rights, a non-governmental organization working to promote labor and employment rights. For over twenty years she has been working with trade union movements in Russia and CIS countries, promoting labor and employment rights in Russia.
She has acted as a consultant for national and international trade unions and deals especially with labor standards, fundamental principles and rights at work. Elena Gerasimova is co-founder and Chairman of the Council of the Professional Association “Lawyers for Labor Rights”. She is a member of expert councils of the State Duma, Ministry of Labour, and Ombudsmen of Russia and serves as an expert for a number of other Russian governmental bodies. Her current research interests include freedom of association, right to strike, social partnership, human rights at work, international labor standards, protection against discrimination, equality at work, etc. She is the author of over 50 articles and publications in Russian and English.
Senior Program Manager at the ACT Foundation
Tandiwe Gross graduated in political science and law and holds an MA in Labor Policies and Globalization from the University of Kassel and Berlin School of Economics and Law. After working for the Global Labor University and the International Labor Organization in the area of labor rights and due diligence in global supply chains, she now works as Senior Program Manager at the ACT Foundation.
Senior Labor Relations Specialist at the ILO
Susan Hayter is a Senior Industrial Relations Specialist at the International Labor Office in Geneva, Switzerland, where she heads the Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining Group in the Conditions of Work and Equality Department. She is the editor and a contributing author of The Role of Collective Bargaining in the Global Economy (ILO and Edward Elgar). Her work focuses on the changing nature of work and production and the implications for work, unions and employers, and industrial relations. She has also worked on the technical secretariat of the ILO World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization where she was responsible for the knowledge network on global supply chains.
Prior to joining the ILO, she was the Director of the Cape Town Office of the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa and a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Industrial Relations. She played a role in the establishment of legitimate industrial relations institutions during the transition to democracy. She has an MSc in Industrial Relations from the London School of Economics.
Emeritus professor of the Berlin School of Economics and Law
Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Herr is an emeritus professor of the Berlin School of Economics and Law. He is an expert in Micro & Macroeconomics, International Economics, Economic and Monetary Policies.
Non-executive director of the GLU Online Academy board
Dr Frank Hoffer is a research fellow of the Global Labor University. He studied in Bremen, London and Moscow. He holds a PhD in Economics. During his professional career, Frank Hoffer was a Labor Attache at the Germany Embassy in Moscow, worked as a senior research officer at the International Labor Organization and served as the Executive Director of the ACT Foundation. His main areas of interest and research are social policy, wage policies and the application of international labor standards. He is a non-executive director of the GLU Online Academy board
Resercher at the University of Regensburg
Claudia Hofmann studied law in Munich. During her studies and legal clerkship, she worked, among others, at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich and at the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Pretoria, South Africa. Before joining the Regensburg faculty in January 2011, she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Business Law, Department of Business, Labor and Social Law, at the University of Kassel. As a member of the interdisciplinary doctoral program ‘Global Social Policies and Governance’, she wrote her doctoral thesis there on the topic of “The Influence of International Social Standards on National Social Security Systems – An Investigation Using South Africa as an Example”. In her habilitation project, she dealt with the question of how inequality is addressed in international, European and national law.
Executive manager, Global Partnership Network
Simone Buckel is an Executive manager of the Global Partnership Network in Kassel, Germany. She is affiliated with the University of Kassel, as a department member, and the International Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD).
Emeritus Professor of Industrial Relations
Professor Richard Hyman has been one of the most prominent figures in British and European employment relations research for most of the past four decades. He has written extensively on the themes of comparative industrial relations, collective bargaining, trade unionism, industrial conflict and labour market policy. His books have encouraged generations of students, researchers, and activists to view the employment relationship in its wider social and political context.
Professor Hyman received his BA and DPhil from Oxford University. He joined LSE in 2000 having previously held a Chair in Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick. He is founding editor of the European Journal of Industrial Relations and has served on the editorial board of numerous journals throughout his academic career.
In May 2009, to commemorate Professor Hyman’s long and distinguished career, the British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR) held a conference in his honour.
Deputy Director at Office of Trade and Labor Affairs, US Department of Labor
Chris Land-Kazlauskas is a specialist in industrial relations with over 20 years working in the international development sector. Skilled in negotiation, facilitation, training design and delivery, development cooperation, as well as leading and motivating cross-cultural and international teams. Combine solid theoretical knowledge of international labour standards – particularly related to freedom of association and collective bargaining – and comparative industrial relations, with experience supporting improved policies and institutions at a country level and as a practitioner holding several elected union positions.
Senior Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research
Boy Lüthje is a Senior Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research and a visiting scholar at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. His research focuses on the political economy of
global production networks, innovation, and work. His interest in China and Southeast Asia developed in the course of his research on global production and work in the IT industry during the recent decade. He recently completed an extensive research project on regimes of production and industrial relations in China’s manufacturing industries. Together with Tobias ten Brink and Christopher McNally (East-West Center) he is conducting a major research project on China’s new capitalism and its perspectives of economic and social re-balancing.
Retired Professor from the Institute for International Political Economy at the Berlin School of Economics and Law (IPE)
Birgit Mahnkopf is a retired Professor of European Politics at the Berlin School of Economics and Law Berlin; diploma, Ph.D. and post-doctoral degree (habilitation) in social sciences at the Free University Berlin. Former positions: visiting professor, Institute of Sociology, Technical University Darmstadt; research fellow, Science Center for Social Research Berlin (WZB); research fellow Social Research Center Dortmund; lecturer in sociology, Free University Berlin.
Director of the Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development Research Programme, School of Economic and Business Sciences
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the DSI/NRF SARChI Industrial Development
Phumzile Ncube holds a fellowship at DSI/NRF SARChI Industrial Development. Her work experience has been in economic research in the areas of labor economics, industrial policy and competition policy.
Her research interests are: African economic development, industrial development, industrialization, and regional value chains.
Professor of Economics at the University of Greenwich
Özlem Onaran is a Professor of Economics at the University of Greenwich. She is the director of the Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre and Co-Director of the Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability. She has done extensive research on issues of inequality, wage-led growth, employment, globalization, gender, and crises.
She has directed research projects for Rebuilding Macroeconomics/ESRC, the International Labour Organisation, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the Foundation of European Progressive Studies, the Vienna Chamber of Labour, the Austrian Science Foundation, and Unions21. She is member of the Scientific Committee of the Foundation of European Progressive Studies, Scientific Advisory Board of Hans Boeckler Foundation, and the Policy Advisory Group of the Women’s Budget Group.
She has more than seventy articles in books and peer reviewed journals such as Cambridge Journal of Economics, World Development, Environment and Planning A, Public Choice, Economic Inquiry, European Journal of Industrial Relations, International Review of Applied Economics, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Eastern European Economics, and Review of Political Economy.
Professor of Labour Transformations and Social Innovation at the Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care
Nicolas Pons-Vignon is a Professor of Labour Transformations and Social Innovation at the Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). He is also the Chair of the Board of the Global Labour Column, which he edited between 2009 and 2018. Prior to moving to Switzerland in 2021, Nicolas worked at the School of Economics and Finance of the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, where he created and co-ordinated the Masters in Applied Development Economics. His research focuses on labour market restructuring and on the political economy of economic and development policy.
Former Director of Campaigns and Communications for the international trade union federation of food, farm and hotel and catering workers (IUF)
Peter Rossman is a former Director of Campaigns and Communications for the international trade union federation of food, farm and hotel and catering workers IUF from 1991 until retirement in 2020. During that period, he was actively involved in building trade union organisations in transnational companies and their supply chains.
Professor of Political Economy in the department of European and International Studies
Engelbert Stockhammer is a Professor of Political Economy in the department of European and International Studies. He did his PhD in Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA, and has worked at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (2000-2009) and Kingston University London (2010-2018), where he led the Political Economy Research Group, before joining King’s College London in 2018. He has taught or held visiting positions at Bilkent University, Turkey, German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Germany, Maastricht University, Netherlands, Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK), Germany, and Sabanci University, Turkey.
He has done research projects for the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the International Labor Office (ILO). Engelbert does research in political economy and macroeconomics, on issues of financialisation, distribution and growth and economic policy in Europe. He has published more than 70 articles in peer reviewed journals.
Coordinator of the Wages, Working Time, Maritime and Specific Categories of Workers Team in the International Labor Standards Department of the ILO
Beatriz Vacotto graduated as a lawyer in Cordoba, Argentina and later obtained a Masters in International Relationship in the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. She is now working as Coordinator of the Wages, Working Time, Maritime and Specific Categories of Workers Team in the International Labor Standards Department of the ILO. Prior to that, she worked for the Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV), where she was in charge of assisting the ILO Workers’ group and trade unions from different countries in work related to International Labor Standards and the ILO supervisory mechanisms. Her former experience includes working for the ILO training center in Turin where she was responsible for a training project on freedom of association and in the ILO International Labor Standards Department in Geneva.
Researcher at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
Lucien van der Walt is a South African writer, professor of sociology and labor educator. His research engages the anarchist/syndicalist tradition of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin; trade unionism and working-class history, particularly in southern Africa; and neo-liberal state restructuring.
He currently teaches and researches at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape , South Africa, and previously worked at the University of the Witwatersrand . His 2007 PhD on anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa in the early 1900s won both the international prize for the best PhD dissertation from the Labor History journal, and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa prize for best African PhD thesis.
Legal Director of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Jeffrey Vogt is the Legal Director of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Before joining the ITUC in 2011, he was the Global Economic Policy Specialist for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL CIO) and later the Deputy Director of its International Department. Previously, he represented trade unions in litigation in US state and federal courts. He is a graduate of Cornell Law School, where he earned his JD and LLM in International and Comparative Law. He also studied international law at the University of Paris.
Head of the department for European economic policy
Since 2018, Andrew Watt is the head of the department for European economic policy. His research interests include economic governance of the euro area, the interaction of wage and macroeconomic policies, Social Europe, comparative political economy; external representation of the IMK. Teaching at the BFI University of Applied Sciences, Vienna, European Academy of Labor, Frankfurt, University of Applied Science Rhein-Waal.
Professor Emeritus in the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP)
Edward Webster is currently Professor Emeritus in the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP), at the University of the Witwatersrand which he has served for almost 40 years. He is recognized locally and internationally for his significant contribution to scholarship, especially in the field of Industrial Sociology. His Cast in a Racial Mold (1985), showing how the labor movement in South Africa was shaped by changes in the labor process, remains a classic.
More recently his book with Rob Lambert and Andries Bezuidenhout Grounding Globalization: Labor in the Age of Insecurity was awarded the prestigious American Sociological Association award for the best scholarly monograph published on labor in 2008. He is the author of seven books and 108 academic articles, as well as numerous research reports.
He pioneered the academic study of the sociology of work and labor in South Africa. As Head of the Department of Sociology at Wits University for ten years (1988-1995; 2000-2002), he focused on the transformation of the curriculum and staff development (particularly of young, African scholars). Webster transformed it into the leading department of sociology in Africa. He introduced an MA by course work and an honors program in Industrial Sociology which has produced many of the key industrial relations scholars and actors in South Africa. Professor Webster founded, and was Director of the Sociology of Work Unit (SWOP), for twenty-four years.