Dr. Kohl S. Gill, left, founder of LaborVoices, meets with other executives: Chief Technology Officer Brook Williams and Victor Ciuccio, Strategic Advisor based in Washington, D.C.
When Dr. Kohl Singh Gill stood before a packed theater of UCSB Physics grad students, faculty, and others in January of this year, he explained how his career path led him from science labs to labor rights (see our February 2013 article on Gill). The 2005 Physics Ph.D. alum spoke about leaving a lucrative career in government science policy to take a chance on a startup that fueled his passion to fight for the rights of laborers, particularly in developing nations.
UCSB Physics Ph.D. alum Dr. Kohl S. Gill addressed students in a Career Day Colloquium titled “Physics, Policy, and Phones” on Jan. 29 at Broida Hall. Photo credit: Patricia MarroquinGill founded that startup, LaborVoices, in May 2010. LaborVoices collects anonymous feedback from factory workers via their mobile phones and other mobile technology on such issues as wages, treatment, and worker safety. The feedback is then sent to the companies that do business with these factories as part of their supply chains, in the hopes that companies improve conditions and workers avoid abuses.
On its website, LaborVoices says: “We're revolutionizing accountability and transparency in supply chains and labor markets, helping brands and workers immediately address important issues before they become urgent. We close the loop: guiding workers to best-in-class employers, while guiding brands to best-in-class suppliers.”
At the January colloquium, Gill expressed the hope that his small startup could gain a big contract. Earning work with a big corporation, he said, would help LaborVoices enhance its credibility in the marketplace and enable it to grow its business to offer more services to stem labor abuses.
LaborVoices earned that big break recently, when it signed a contract with retail giant Wal-Mart Stores.
The GradPost caught up with Gill to find out how LaborVoices was able to earn Wal-Mart’s business; what work it will be doing for the giant retailer; the significance of a big contract for this small startup; and more.
How did a small startup get a big corporation like Wal-Mart to do business with it? Please explain how you got Wal-Mart’s business. Was it a lengthy process?
We were persistent and focused. There is no doubt that the recent tragedies such as the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh [more than 1,000 garment workers and others died and 2,500 were injured] also played a role. The public is very much aware of these events and increasingly wants to see something done about the working conditions of factory workers in developing countries. Consumers want to feel good about their purchases, they now see the impact that their consumption has on the global economy and supply chains, and they are increasingly holding the brands accountable and putting pressure on them to do more to avoid such tragedies. It took us several months to introduce ourselves to Wal-Mart, and several months more to close the deal. This is typical for enterprise customers of this size.
What does the work entail, and for how long?
Dr. Kohl S. GillThe recently signed one-year contract with Wal-Mart stipulates that LaborVoices will set up and operate an automated phone-based survey and information system to communicate with some of the factory workers in Wal-Mart’s 280 supplier facilities in Bangladesh. We'll gather information directly from the workers regarding the safety situation within their factories, and we'll also seek information on their overall working conditions. We'll then interpret and transmit that data in reports to appropriate Wal-Mart staff. We are starting the initial implementation in the next few weeks.
What does obtaining this contract mean for your startup?
It is a critical event that will allow us to deploy our technology on a much larger scale than we have done before. We expect to learn much from that experience and we'll fine-tune our service to maximize the satisfaction of all our stakeholders, particularly the workers, themselves.
Will the Wal-Mart contract help you get more contracts?
I would hope so. This contract, with such a world-class retail leader as Wal-Mart, definitely enhances our credibility in the marketplace. Now we're all focused on delivering a service that will meet or even exceed Wal-Mart’s expectations, and the expectations of our users.
LaborVoices employs another UCSB alum. Please tell us about him and how that working relationship came about.
Brook Williams was in the same entering Physics grad school class, and I ran into him a few years back in a San Francisco coffee shop. We reconnected and I found out he’d made his way into software development via his UCSB Ph.D. in String Theory [Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, 2004]; microfinance; and another startup. As our CTO [Chief Technology Officer], Brook’s been invaluable in designing and implementing our technology.
Explain the plight of factory workers in developing nations and how LaborVoices assists them.
Factory workers in the developing world are often disconnected from the supply chain ecosystems; they do not have much of a voice. They have little say on their own working conditions and they're just struggling to survive and feed their families. This is not a healthy situation for the workers, and it's not a healthy situation for the supply chains, either, because a critical feedback loop is missing. Such a feedback loop would help eliminate excesses and abuses that benefit nobody in the long term. LaborVoices is providing what has been missing all along: an early warning system based on direct feedback from factory workers.