Ishwar Surendran (BA ‘25) sought a summer internship that would combine his academic and professional interests in globalization and build on his previous work experience providing legal outreach on Michigan farms. He found it with the Fair Labor Association’s (FLA), a non-profit international network that promotes human rights at work by encouraging companies, universities, and civil society organizations to adhere to international labor standards. Surendran specifically worked with the Agricultural Fair Compensation team, helping staff advance the industry’s efforts toward living wages.
“FLA has a strong emphasis on cooperating with private sector agricultural producers while maintaining stringent enforcement of fair compensation and worker treatment guidelines,” Surendran said. “I got to see both the day-to-day practicalities of farm work as well as the manager level decision making.”
Over the course of the internship, Surendran found himself collecting data and analyzing wages for hazelnut workers in Turkey. This helped him identify important wage-related trends that can help Turkish business affiliates ensure they are paying their employees fair wages.
Working within a diverse team stood out to Surendran. He interacted daily with colleagues and managers from the United States, the Netherlands, Turkey, Japan, and Guatemala. However, as Surendran learned, working across time zones doesn’t come without a few difficulties.
“The biggest takeaway from this internship was that working with an international team requires lots of flexibility. FLA staff come from a number of backgrounds, so interns and employees need to be willing to meet at odd times, use different communication platforms—such as Teams and WhatsApp—and be patient with connectivity issues at meetings.”
Surendran credits the Ford School’s rigorous coursework for effectively preparing him to address real-world challenges at FLA. He also emphasized the important use of data to inform public policy.
The internship provided Surendran with experience with data analysis and shaped his future job search: “I am now much more interested in a public policy career dealing with data!” After this experience with FLA, I am looking for more jobs that require data analysis and data-informed decision making,” Surendran said.
The Fair Labor Association Fellowship is supported jointly by the U-M President’s Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights (PACLSHR) and the Donia Human Rights Center (DHRC) at the University of Michigan.
By Julia Brownell (BA '25)
