The logistics revolution has demanded the extraction of value at any cost. The government it assembled has left the world fragmented and fragile—an endless ocean of cargo containers stretching from factory to fulfillment center. How many have been exploited, displaced, and enslaved—with not just countries, but entire cultures bought, sold, and thrown away? Supply chains stand amid the greatest period of environmental degradation in the history of the world, with landscapes torn asunder, skies and seas polluted. What does justice mean in an age of supply chain capitalism? What reconciliation can we hope for, and when will it arrive?

DELIVERY EXCEPTION: SUPPLY CHAIN JUSTICE & RECONCILIATION is a speaker series bringing together scholars and organizers to discuss logistical justice and examine the possibilities of reconciliation in an era of supply chain capitalism.

Wednesday, March 27th at 6PM ET - “Evaluating 25 Years of Supply Chain Solidarity”

BENJAMIN MCKEAN, JESSICA CHAMPAGNE, MORGAN CURRIER, & EVANGELINA ARGUETA

Benjamin McKean is a political theorist whose research concerns global justice, populism, and the relationship between theory and practice. His research has been published in American Political Science Review, Political Theory, Journal of Politics, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, and elsewhere. His book Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2020) argues that people subject to unjust institutions and practices like transnational supply chains should be disposed to solidarity with the others who are also subject to them. Before coming to Ohio State, he received his PhD from the Princeton University Department of Politics and was a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago.

Jessica Champagne is the Deputy Director for Strategy and Field Operations for the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent labor rights monitoring organization. She coordinates investigations in apparel factories around the world and works to press international apparel brands and retailers to address violations of workers’ rights. In addition to remedying health and safety violations, winning reinstatement of illegally fired workers, and pressing for the creation of binding programs like the International Accord for Health and Safety and the Lesotho Anti-GBVH Agreements, the WRC has assisted workers in recovering more than $110 million in back pay for garment workers.

Prior to joining the WRC in 2010, Jessica worked for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Indonesian Society for Social Transformation (INSIST), the Urban Poor Consortium, and other organizations in the U.S. and Indonesia. She is the recipient of a Heschel Vision Award from Jews United for Justice and of a Fulbright fellowship for research in Indonesia, and a former member of the Board of Instigators of the Diverse City Fund.

Morgan Currier is a Regional Director with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR SEIU), which represents over 30,000 resident-physicians nationwide. She is passionate about supporting healthcare workers in their efforts to challenge our broken healthcare system. Prior to CIR, she organized retail and grocery workers with UFCW 21 (now 3000) in Seattle, Washington. She began her work in the labor movement as a student at the University of Washington where she was a member of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). As a member and eventually staff for the organization, she led successful campaigns against corporations like Nike, Adidas, and Sodexo. At the UW she received the Martin and Anne Jugum Scholarship in Labor Studies.

Evangelina Argueta is the Coordinator of the Maquila Worker Organizing Project of the General Center for Workers (Central General de Trabajadores, or CGT) in Choloma, Honduras, a major center for apparel export production. Evangelina has negotiated historic agreements with three major North American apparel brands which have led to 50,000 workers forming or joining unions, being covered by collective bargaining agreements, and as a result enjoying dignity on the job and improved wages and benefits. In the garment sector, she assists workers in establishing factory-level unions, addressing worker grievances through dialogue with employers, and negotiating collective bargaining agreements. More broadly, she plays a crucial role in the national labor movement on Honduras, including serving on national tripartite commissions and engaging with the Honduran government about key topics for low-wage workers.

Argueta began working in the apparel industry at age 15 and was a founding member of the SITRAVINCASA union at her factory at age 16. She is a graduate of the Instituto Deber y Haber, a technical school in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where she studied commerce and public accounting. Argueta’s leadership has inspired other women workers and she is committed to encouraging more women to lead.