This panel will explore how city government can successfully use its regulatory and purchasing power to enforce labor and human rights. Using a municipalist framework for citizen engagement and corporate accountability, panelists will explore some economic justice struggles here in New York City as they respond to multinational corporations like Uber and Amazon.

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The panel will explore how state and city government can and have successfully used their regulatory and purchasing power to enforce labor and human rights.  The panel will examine these efforts through an international human rights and municipalist framework. Corporate accountability which has often been invoked to address the harmful effects of globalization in the global south is equally relevant to our economic justice struggles here in New York City as we deal with multinational corporations like Uber and Amazon.  Municipalism is used here broadly to suggest a political organization that involves neighborhood, localities to achieve rights which include city and state local government in contrast from a focus on the national government.  Municipalism provides an avenue for activists to articulate human rights and corporate accountability principles through local regulatory and decision-making entities.  Speakers will address initiatives such as legislation that would cap the number of for hire vehicles on the street, legislation to set minimum pay rules for app drivers, greater transparency and democratic processes for large developments such as the proposed Amazon headquarters in Long Island City, food procurement policies in New York and, more broadly, a legislative agenda that priorities people over corporate interests.