|
Auret van Heerden was Executive Director of the Fair Labor Association from December 2001 - December 2003 before being named President and CEO. He comes to the FLA with thirty years experience in international human and labor rights. He began campaigning for worker rights as a young student in apartheid South Africa and co-authored a book in 1976 that called for trade union rights for black workers. He served two terms as president of the National Union of South African S
tudents. After graduating in Industrial Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg he founded an institute that provided research and training services to trade unions and civil society groups. He was forcedotniexile in May 1987 after long periods of solitary confinement and torture.
He joined the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1988 and worked on their Program of Action against Apartheid in Geneva until 1994 when the new democratic South African government appointed him Labor Attachéin the South African Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva.
He returned to the ILO in 1996 to coordinate the Special Action Program on Social and Labor Issues in Export Processing Zones. In that capacity he worked on labor relations issues in 25 zone-operating countries and established a Swiss-funded project to improve labor relations in Special Economic Zones in China. He has written ILO reports on disinvestment and economic sanctions; Export Processing Zones (EPZs); the export garment industry and labor rights. He has moved back to his home outside Geneva and established a European subsidiary of the FLA.
| 
