This week, the workshop Workers Governing Technologies: Collective Strategies Across Contexts, is underway, taking place at the University of Toronto. The workshop is bringing together 20 invited speakers from Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and the United States to exchange insights on worker-led governance of digital technologies—including platforms, data, and AI—through collective bargaining, co-op formation, and policy reform. It features roundtables on key themes such as collective bargaining, co-op formation, and policy reform in industries including culture, technology, delivery, and media.
Get to know our amazing speakers!
Meet the Speakers
Colin Clark is an artist, researcher, and developer of community-led technologies. Since the 1990s, he has contributed to the growth of inclusive design in Canada and internationally. Colin is co-founder of Lichen Community Systems, a non-profit worker cooperative dedicated to the practice of community-led design. As an artist, he designs creative access technologies for live performance with the Kinetic Light Dance Company, mediates motion-media-robotic data flows with the Choreodaemonics Collective, improvises electronic noise with Bitstance, and develops open source software and hardware frameworks used by artists worldwide.
Ricard Espelt is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business and a senior researcher at the Urban Transformation and Global Change Laboratory at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. He specializes in action research in the fields of social economy and the cultural sphere. He holds a Doctorate in Information Society and Knowledge, an Industrial Doctorate in Social Sciences and Humanities, and a graduate degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. He is also the academic editor of the Internet Policy Review and a visiting researcher at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in Berlin. Additionally, he is the cofounder of the inLoft Cultural and Research Center (Copons, Barcelona), the artistic and educational project Desvestint Aliments, and the strategic social tool for cooperation and sustainable commons femProcomuns.
Axel Uriel Gonzalez Perez is a digital and traditional artist from Mexico. He has a degree in digital animation and a master’s degree in concept art and storyboarding. As an artist, he has worked as an illustrator for children’s and cultural publications, and as a concept artist, he has been part of teams for independent short films. He currently works as a teacher of drawing, painting, and photography. He is a member of Arte es Ética, coordinator of its audiovisual area, and representative in Mexico of this collective, which warns about the damages of generative AI in the arts throughout Ibero-America.
Victoria Hernández is a popular economy worker, cultural manager, and artist. She holds a degree in Administration and a postgraduate qualification in Management and Cultural Policies from the National University of La Plata. She is a member of Factorial!, an interdisciplinary team organized as a workers’ cooperative that provides specialized professional services in administrative management, accounting, and communication to cooperatives and productive initiatives within the popular, social, and solidarity economy. She is also an associate of the cultural cooperative CRUDA, where she co-leads the Beressia project—an initiative that fosters the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and disciplines related to art and the environment, with the aim of understanding and protecting wetland territories. In addition, Hernández works as a theatre director and actress in the independent theatre circuit. She completed a Master’s degree in Scenic Practice and Visual Culture at the Reina Sofía Museum in Spain.
Declan Taylor-Khorana Ingham is a researcher with the Canadian Union of Public Employees assigned to the healthcare sector in Ontario. In that role, he supports union bargaining teams in hospitals across Ontario fighting for fair wages, stronger collective agreements, and high-quality public services. Previously, he worked for the Canadian Federation of Nurses’ Unions and three federal departments, most recently developing unemployment insurance policy for Employment and Social Development Canada. Declan completed his studies at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Hertie School, Germany. His research interests include growing the capacity and militancy of the labour movement, social democratic strategy, and measures to design a workers-first economy and a welfare state that leaves no one behind.
Krystal is a data worker, organizer, and researcher at DAIR, focusing on the human labor that underpins AI systems and the ethical questions that surround them. Her work examines the often-invisible individuals who power the AI supply chain, including data annotators, content moderators, and other platform-based workers, as well as the broader systems that shape their working conditions. Before entering the research space, Krystal spent a decade working on political and issue campaigns as a community organizer, driven by a commitment to equity and systemic change. Her training in geology enables her to approach the AI ecosystem as a layered, interconnected system, one where human labor is often hidden or overlooked.
Paula Montagner is an economist with a master’s degree in economics from the State University of Campinas. She currently serves as Undersecretary of Statistics and Labour Studies at the Brazilian Ministry of Labour and Employment. She is leading the AI & labour working group within the Ministry and is leading the BRICS research group related to labour issues.
Neal McDougall is Assistant Executive Director at the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC). Since 2013, Neal has advocated for Canadian screenwriters in proceedings before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), federal Parliamentary committees, and with funding bodies and elected officials. Prior to that, Neal worked in policy and program development at the Canada Media Fund (CMF). He is a Board member of the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE), and his writing on topics from broadcasting policy to artificial intelligence has been published in tvo.org, Cartt, and the Toronto Star. Neal has worked as a professional screenwriter himself and was an award-winning student filmmaker. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from York University, where he studied film and video production.
C., (she/they) holds a degree in Psychology (UBA, Arg.) and a postgraduate specialization in NGO Promotion and Management (UCM, Esp). Also, She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the UNQ (Arg.). C, spent her professional life as a professor, researcher, extensionist, and cooperativist. She co-founded Código Libre, a tech co-op focused on socially impactful projects, and is serving as vice-president of FACTTIC. Her work has been driven by a strong commitment to social and political transformation in the context of late capitalism. In recent years, she has developed a deep interest in decolonial and gender studies as lenses to rethink her practices. She is also the mother of a ten years old boy, a student of theater and queer tango. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution,” a quote attributed to Emma Goldman, captures the spirit that guides her journey.
David Ng is a member of Seize the Means of Production Video Co-Op, which is a unionized worker co-op that was founded on social justice principles. He is a Director, and the Arts Union Cooperative Organizer & Developer. at the Union Co-Operative Initiative, an organization that develops unionized worker co-ops. David is a queer, feminist, media artist, and co-Artistic Director of Love Intersections – an arts collective made up of queer people of colour. His current artistic practices grapple with queer, racialized, and diasporic identity, and how intersectional identities can be expressed through media arts. His interests include imagining new possibilities of how queer racialized artists can use their practice to transform communities.
Juan Manuel Ottaviano is a labour lawyer from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). He is currently a labour relations consultant and a researcher at the Centre for Studies on Work and Development (CETyD) at the Interdisciplinary School of Higher Social Studies of the National University of San Martín (IDAES-UNSAM) and at Fundar. He is a union adviser, communicator, and specialist in labour issues and technological change.
Simon Préfontaine has been working in the video game industry since 2008. While he enjoys his career as a game designer his latest passion is union organization! While working at Bethesda Game Studios on their Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises he was part of the team that formed the OneBGS union under CWA in 2024. OneBGS is the first wall-to-wall union in Microsoft’s Xbox gaming division and works hand-in-hand with colleagues in various other Xbox studios to encourage further unionization. He looks forward to improving the working conditions of game developers across the industry.
Austin Robey is an entrepreneur and advocate for collective ownership, solidarity economics, and new models for online creative economies. He is currently developing Subvert, a collectively owned and controlled online music marketplace. Austin previously co-founded Ampled, a cooperatively owned platform for musicians, and was a co-founder of Metalabel.
Clarissa Ribeiro Schinestsck is a Brazilian labour prosecutor and legal scholar. She holds a PhD in Labour Law from the University of São Paulo and has previously served as a labour judge in São Paulo. Currently, she works as a Federal Labour Prosecutor in Campinas (15th Region) and teaches at the Higher School of the Federal Prosecution Service. She is also Editor-in-Chief of a Brazilian journal on Labour and Human Development Law. Schinestsck has been active in promoting workers’ rights in the platform economy. She played a key role in the national campaign launched by the Federal Labour Prosecution Service to raise awareness of the real rights of delivery workers in Brazil, challenging platform narratives that obscure employment protections and worker rights. She is also part of the coordination unit for combating fraud in labour relations and member of cloudwork working group at the Labour Prosecutor’s Office in Brazil.
Gabriel Simeone is a Brazilian tech worker and popular educator, serving as Director of the Tech Sector of the Homeless Workers’ Movement in Brazil (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto – MTST). He is also Director of Training and a key member of the national coordination of this social movement. He has a tech background and contributes significantly to the movement’s digital strategy and grassroots education initiatives.
Núria Soto is the founder of the union platform RidersXDerechos, created in 2017, and a co-founder of the cycle-logistics cooperative Mensakas, active since 2018. She worked as a rider for platforms such as Deliveroo and Stuart until 2018, when she began working in her own cooperative, where she continues to this day. She is part of the CoopCycle federation of cooperatives and serves on the board of Som Ecologística, a second-tier cooperative that brings together cycle-logistics cooperatives in Catalonia. She is currently pursuing a PhD focused on the impacts of algorithmic management on working conditions. Her career combines union activism, cooperativism, and academic work, with the aim of transforming the labour model and promoting fair, sustainable, and collective alternatives.
Katie Tibaldi is a writer, director and producer who has worked for the likes of NBC, CBS, ABC, Showtime, MTV Networks, TBS, CNN, the NBA and Sony Pictures. Between series like BROAD CITY, NURSE JACKIE and DAMAGES, Katie has worked on hundreds of episodes of television. She produced the award-winning doc feature STREET FIGHTING MEN, distributed by First Run Features, and the 4x Emmy Nominated AT HOME WITH AMY SEDARIS, winner of the WGA Award for Comedy/Variety Sketch Series. A writer/director of commercials, films, sketches and series, her work has screened worldwide. Katie was named a “10 to Watch” filmmaker by The Independent and a Sundance Institute Fellow. She is a Writers Guild of America East Captain and Committee Member, member of the Alliance of Women Directors and co-founder of the grassroots @WGAStrikeUnite. Most recently Katie wrapped on the Amazon series HARLEM and is producing a new feature.
Jason is the Founder and Partner of the boutique law and business consulting practice Jason Wiener|p.c., and co-founder of “Colorado Cooperative Developers”. Jason specializes in cooperative law, shared ownership models, regenerative capital and financing strategies, sustainable economies law, and worker-ownership. Jason has advised on more than two dozen worker-cooperative conversions, several multi-stakeholder ownership conversions, and more than a dozen platform cooperatives. Jason has also advised numerous clients through socially responsible financings, including through membership capital campaigns, private offerings, and qualified intrastate public offerings. Jason holds a B.S. from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and a J.D. cum laude from Suffolk University Law School, where he received honors with a concentration in international law. Jason has served on the Boards of several worker-owned businesses around the country, including Stocky United, Equal Exchange and Colorado Recovery. Jason has been an adjunct professor in CSU’s Global Sustainability and Social Enterprise program, where he taught an MBA course on business law and ethics. He has also been a guest lecturer at C.U. Law’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic.
Luca Zúñiga has been a member of the worker-led cooperative Alternativa Laboral Trans (ALT), a tech co-op formed only by trans people, for five years, where he manages projects, coordinates labor inclusion initiatives, oversees administrative tasks, and teaches technology courses both online and in rural areas, focusing on accessibility and inclusion. He brings experience from previous work in social activism and media production, having created audiovisual content and podcasts centered on diversity and gender. At ALT, his work bridges technology, social justice, and cooperative governance, emphasizing humane and sustainable approaches to team management, client relationships, and project delivery. Luca’s experience reflects a practical commitment to designing and implementing digital tools that are effective, socially conscious, and empower communities, demonstrating how cooperative, worker-led initiatives can create meaningful impact across different contexts.
CLCF Co-Director & Assistant Professor
Rafael Grohmann is a Co-lead and Co-Director of the Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) cluster and an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. Rafael is the leader of the DigiLabour initiative and founding editor of the Platforms & Society journal.
