Kevin Cassidy – Director for the ILO Office for the United States and Canada – has a uniquely comprehensive view on both the issues and solutions for labor today…as well as glimpses of how artificial intelligence and new tech will affect labor tomorrow. It’s not what you think; CEOs and CFOs, for example, are in the group most easily replaced by AI. Franklin University Provost Christopher Washington joins host Maureen Metcalf in this wide-ranging discussion of labor’s past, present, and future.
Formed in the aftermath of World War I, the International Labour Organization has evolved along with the workforce as part of the League of Nations and the United Nations. The ILO studies the environment for workers from a tripartite perspective: from labor itself, from business, and from government. All three are necessary to create optimal conditions for workers – but for women, minorities, and citizens of developing nations, conditions are far from optimal.
Kevin Cassidy is currently the Director and Representative to the Bretton Woods, Multilateral Organizations for the International Labour Organization (ILO) Office for the United States and Canada. In the past, Mr. Cassidy has served as Senior Communications and Economic and Social Affairs Officer in the ILO Office for the United Nations; and, as the ILO’s Chief Technical Adviser for its Global Campaign on Promoting Fundamental Rights at Work. During that time, he developed numerous communication initiatives in over 40 countries such as interactive radio and television programs as well as training journalists on communicating locally on decent work, child labor, forced labor, discrimination, and the freedom of association. He has also worked in several UN offices including the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Ban Ki-moon), the UN Department of Public Information, and the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service.