Business and Human Rights: The Future of Work in a Covid World

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COVID-19 has created incomparable economic pressure for businesses and their workforce. The Pandemic created choices for Business Leaders to challenge the working environment of the past and to consider changes within the working environment on how to humanize the future of work.

What will be the role of business in preventing and mitigating human rights impact in recovery efforts to address the needs of the most vulnerable? How will technology impact the future of work?

About the speakers:

Liv Tørres is the international secretary of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions – LO Norway.

Ms. Tørres has worked on international humanitarian, peace, and development issues for three decades. Before joining LO-Norway at the end of 2021, she was the director of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, hosted by the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. She has previously served as Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Center and as Secretary General of Norwegian People’s Aid.

She is an expert on labour, development, peacebuilding and democratization issues and has written on these issues for several publications. She has worked as a political advisor for Norway’s Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion and was a member of the Norwegian Labour Party´s International Committee for nearly 10 years.

Ms. Tørres holds a PhD in political science from the University of Oslo. Her academic background includes positions such as Senior Advisor at the Research Council of Norway, and Associate Professor at the University of Oslo. In the 1990s, she established and managed Fafo South Africa, a policy research center with key programs included such as the first national labour force survey in South Africa and the first survey of child labour and tenancy in the tobacco sector (in Malawi). She also served as Research Director of the Institute for Applied Social Sciences, Fafo Norway. Since 2017, she has served as a visiting professor at Wits University in Johannesburg and more recently as the chair of the portfolio board for Global development and international Relations of the Research Council of Norway.

Professor Mthunzi Perry-Mason Mdwaba is a serial entrepreneur, businessman, executive and passionate advocate for business in all its diverse forms and across developing and developed nations. He is a fierce defender of skills development, the conditions required for sustainable enterprises, business human rights and responsible business conduct and FoW expert.

He is the founder, President and CEO of TZoro IBC, an investment and business consultancy, building on his career as an entrepreneur, deal-maker and negotiator. TZoro provides a very niched global strategic advisory service that involves brokering deals, human capital development coaching and mentoring interventions, leveraging the vast networking Mthunzi possesses spanning over 185 countries.

Mthunzi is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and has recently been re-appointed by the Minister of Employment and Labour as the Chairman of Productivity SA Board. Globally, he served as the first African since the ILO was formed in 1919, IOE VP to the ILO(187 Member States),Vice-Chairman of the ILO(Geneva, Switzerland)in 2017, Chairman of the IOE Business Human Rights & Responsible Business Conduct Policy Working Group until June 2021 when he did not renew his mandate to launch his campaign for the ILO DG in 2022. He is also a past Member of the Uber EMEA Advisory Group. He is the Chairman of the SANA (South African Norwegian Association) Board.

Henrik Munthe is a lawyer working in the department for Industrial Relations in Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO). He has been engaged in collective bargaining and his main responsibility is now international social affairs. He is a member of ILO's Governing Body and the board of UN Global Compact Norway. Before joining NHO he was working with one of NHO's sector federations, the Media Business Association. He has previous work experience from the Ministry of Finance, as an assistant judge in a district court, as attorney in a large law firm in Oslo and as the labour counsellor at the Norwegian Mission to the EU in Brussels.

Mr. Masale Godfrey Selematsela received his Diploma in General Nursing Science at Mokopane Nursing School, which is attached to Mokopane hospital, in Waterberg district of Limpopo province. He continued with his studies at Pretoria University where he studied for diploma in community nursing science , and Nursing Management. He also studied advanced labour law through Ditsela at the university of Witwatersrand, and employee relations at Unisa.

Mr. Masale Godfrey Selematsela is a qualified professional nurse registered with SANC, employed by the department of health, in Limpopo province attached to Medingen clinic as an operational manager in charge of health care delivery system in the primary health care setting.

He is currently the president of FEDUSA and serve as treasurer for SATUCC, an organization within the SADC region. He is a chief negotiator for FEDUSA at Nedlac in the development chamber, he also co-chairs the Millennium Labour Council, and he is the former member of the Public health social development sectoral bargaining council, were he represented Hospersa an affiliate of Fedusa.

He also served at the AU-ECOSSOC as a member of the standing committee, were he chaired the cluster committee on trade and industry where he represented the organization at continental level. Recently early 2020 he has been elected as chairperson for Ditsela board. He is the former President of HOSPERSA, where he served two terms of 5 years, during which he was a member of the PSCBC.

In his profession he focuses on health delivery services with special focus rendering effective, efficient primary health care services. He is employed by the department of health, Limpopo province stationed at Medingen clinic under Mopani district.

Kristine Sødal is the Director of ARKIVET Peace and Human Rights Centre.

For several decades she has worked with international development, and her previous job was as Secretary General in the international developmentorganisation Stromme Foundation. She was responsible for employees with offices in ten countries, working with eradication of poverty through education to marginalized groups.

Currently, Sødal is leading ARKIVET, working with a broad scope and critical social mission. Situated on a historical site from 2. World war, ARKIVET has an essential task in actualizing history in various ways in continuous future-oriented peace work. By connecting the past, the present and the future, we work to create knowledge and attitudes centred on our shared values of democracy and human dignity. We work through education, research, digital resources and

ARKIVETs vision is to broaden the room for human dignity.