On the 22nd and 23rd of June, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Business School Network (GBSN) and the Geneva School of Economics and Management of the University of Geneva (GSEM/UNIGE) hosted the second of a series of workshops with a focus on the fair recruitment of migrant workers.

The 2-day workshop gathered 10 business school educators with relevant expertise who are committed to transforming business education by integrating issues of labour rights and human rights into their curricula, as well as ILO technical specialists and experts working on recruitment and labour migration issues. Participants were selected within the GBSN for Human Rights Impact Community, including the research cluster on supply chains, as well as from business schools in countries where the ILO is implementing projects on fair recruitment and labour migration more broadly.

Fair recruitment is an area with a number of entry points within business schools’ curricula, including supply chain management, due diligence and business accountability, and human resource management. Therefore, the overall objective of the activity was to develop a standard pedagogic module for business school audiences on the topic of fair recruitment of workers, with a strong focus on labour migration. This tool is meant to be disseminated with the 200+ member business schools of the GBSN, providing teachers with concrete guidance to discuss the topic in the classroom, and contributing to a growing toolbox of resources on business and human rights education.

This activity has been organized with the support of the FAIR III Programme and the 8.7 Accelerator Lab Multi Partner Fund.

Background

On December 2^nd 2022 in Geneva, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Global Business School Network (GBSN) and the Geneva School of Economics and Management of the University of Geneva (GSEM/UNIGE) signed a memorandum of understanding to increase the inclusion of labour rights in business education. The MoU was signed during the annual meeting of the GBSN for Business and Human Rights impact community, held in Geneva during the week of the 11^th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights.

One of the objectives of the MoU is to develop teaching resources for business school practitioners on pressing human and labour rights related issues. The first workshop was hosted by the GSEM/UNIGE during the week of the MoU signing and was dedicated to the topic of forced labour in the fishing industry. The workshop brought together nine business school lecturers from Asia-Pacific (Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand), Africa (Ghana, South Africa), Europe (France, Switzerland) and Latin America (Ecuador/USA), ILO technical specialists working on forced labour and fishing as well as legal and business and human rights experts.

Agenda