A&S alum Samantha Rudick is shining a light on labour rights and the big-name brands benefiting from the exploitation of workers.
As a program manager at Transparentem, a New York-based non-profit uncovering abuses in global supply chains and driving labour and environmental justice, Rudick oversees investigations and engages directly with companies.
“From our reports, we've seen improved legislation, improved salaries for workers and closed loopholes recruitment agents were using to exploit workers,” says Rudick, who earned her master’s degree in 2015 from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy’s Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program.
At Munk, Rudick fostered her interest in labour rights, which began when she walked into a Ten Thousand Villages store and learned about its fair trade product philosophy. This chance encounter sparked an enduring passion that has threaded itself through Rudick’s educational and work history.
Rudick decided to pursue grad school as an American studying at McGill University. She chose the Munk School in part because of her previous work with Professor Emeritus John Kirton on his G20 Research Group.
“I was interested in all the classes at Munk. It just fit,” Rudick says.
Rudick tailored the program to her focus on labour rights, just as her peers used the MGA to engage their interests in women’s rights, nuclear disarmament, education and more. Rudick uses the skills she learned at U of T in her everyday work life, when crafting memorandums of understanding or, more generally, succeeding in a team environment.
“Our professors put us in so many rooms that it made us feel confident with the subject matter,” Rudick says. “The group project work really helped me understand how to play to people's strengths, listen to other people's ideas and produce something you know shines from the best of all of you.”
During her degree, Rudick interned at the United Nations with the International Trade Centre, an agency focused on trade and development. Internship turned into a part-time role and then a full-time job after graduation. Rudick moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where her career took off.
“I was really thrown into the deep end and then I took that confidence forward,” she says.
Confidence is key in Rudick’s current job, where she often engages in difficult conversations with representatives of major global brands. Transparentem presents its findings to these companies, giving them time to amend labour rights violations in their supply chain.
“Some people don’t want to hear from us,” Rudick says. “The first reaction for a lot of companies is to deny. We explain denying won't work because we'll publish something in a few months saying they denied it, but we have shipping records or workers telling us they sewed the tags on.”
Rudick also works with governments and NGOs to help bring about change, often advocating for agreements between nations.
For example, in December 2023, Rudick co-authored a report that helped bring global attention to Bangladeshi garment workers who were being misled over working conditions in Mauritius. Progress in the area is now slowly being made, in part thanks to the report.
“I've heard that in some of the factories, the living conditions are much better,” Rudick says. “The food, which workers said was inedible and made them ill, is much better and some workers have told us there's less overcrowding in their rooms.”
“I'm thrilled when I see any improvements directly for these workers, I just wish it were more. There's certainly a ways to go.”
Occasionally, Rudick reads worker transcripts, which detail firsthand the exploitation and mistreatment taking place in sweatshops and other abusive workplaces. It's an emotionally taxing process, but a crucial part of the overall goal of the organization.
“My job is mostly hopeful in the sense that what we're doing, the only goal we have, is to push for better conditions for workers. That's it. There's no other mission.”
While living in Geneva, Rudick was invited to do a TEDx talk at the University of Geneva about the social and environmental impact of fast fashion.
“It was my soapbox moment. It was a terrifying pleasure to do it.”
The TEDx talk was a rare opportunity to present the work Rudick has been doing for years behind closed doors: advocating for labour rights and sustainability.
“Buy less. Buy better,” Rudick says. “The clothing you’re wearing was made in some part by real people, and they deserve just as many opportunities to seek their own potential as anyone else.”