IRLE Colloquia Series presents:
In Conversation with Grace Davie, Mapping Corporate Power: Activist-Researchers and Labor Coalitions in the 1970’s U.S.
When working people in the U.S. sought union representation in the 1970s they faced fierce resistance from businesses willing to increase their use of bare-knuckle anti-union tactics. In response, and in the context of rising conservatism, global economic restructuring, financialization, and weak labor law enforcement, a handful of U.S. trade unions began experimenting. They turned to labor-community coalitions that tried to gain leverage over corporations using power structure analysis, financial research, media strategies, and shareholder activism.
Gracie Davie is Associate Professor of History at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY). Her first book was Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: A Social History of Human Science, 1855-2005 (Cambridge UP, 2015). Her current book project is called “Webs of Power: Labor Union Corporate Campaigns in the United States, 1960-2015.”
The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.
