Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Data Economies and Futures: An In-Depth Dialogue
2025-02-12 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | 3312 Murphy Hall
Join UCLA Data X for a discussion on how data and digital ecosystems have reshaped our world, intertwining technology with entrepreneurial and economic outcomes, and changing the way people live and think on Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 3312 Murphy Hall, 12 pm panel and Q&A, 1 pm lunch.

What ethical and practical questions does this shift raise?
What skills do students need now to remain relevant in an AI-driven job market?
What policies must be in place to ensure our economic security?

Moderator:
Ramesh Srinivasan
Professor of Information Studies and Design|Media Arts departments; Director, UCLA Digital Cultures Lab; Community Engagement, UCLA DataX
Panelists:
Tobias Higbie, Professor of History and Labor Studies and Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UCLA College, Social Sciences
Velibor Misic, Associate Professor of Decisions, Operations and Technology Management, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Shreya Shreya, Easton Fellow, MBA Candidate, UCLA Anderson School of Management

Book Talk: Post/Revolutionary Conditions: Renewed Visions of the Iranian Freedom Struggle with author Alborz Ghandehari
2025-02-27 15:00 - 16:30 | 2125 Rolfe Hall
Join the UCLA IRLE and CSW|Streisand Center’s Transnational Gender and Labor Working Group for a book talk on Post/Revolutionary Conditions: Renewed Visions of the Iranian Freedom Struggle with author Alborz Ghandehari on February 27, 2025 at 3 pm at 2125 Rolfe Hall.
The discussion will offer an intersectional analysis of how radical and progressive movement builders have re-envisioned liberation in the post-’79 era, despite new forms of oppression under the Islamic Republic and from US and other foreign imperial powers. Post/Revolutionary Conditions shows how potent reimaginings of a radically democratic future have been shaped by multiple generations of protest and kindred struggles globally.
About the author:
Alborz Ghandehari is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah. His research centers social movements in Iran and Southwest Asia/North Africa, as well as movements in the region’s diasporas.
To RSVP to attend the talk and book signing, click here

Visualizing Oral History
2025-03-04 15:00 - 18:00
Los Angeles-based artist Phung Huynh, whose work centers on Southeast Asian refugee experiences, will discuss labor issues through an immigrant/refugee lens.
She’ll share insights on her Metro public art commission, the 1990 Century City janitor strike, and Professor Virginia Espino’s oral history work on No Más Bebés. Together, they’ll explore how oral history and visual storytelling can shape meaningful community projects.

Date: March 4, 2025
Time: 3:30 – 6 pm
Location: Boelter Hall 2760

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The UCLA CSW|Barbra Streisand Center presents Thinking Gender 2025: "Gendered Labors and Transnational Solidarities"
2025-03-07 08:30 - 18:00 | Collins Alumni Conference Room at UCLA James West Alumni Center
Join the UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center for their 35th annual graduate research “Thinking Gender” conference. The event will feature engaging student presentations and a keynote address by labor rights organizer Adriana Paz Ramirez (International Domestic Workers Federation). The UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment is a proud cosponsor of this year’s conference.
The 2025 Thinking Gender theme, “Gendered Labors and Transnational Solidarities,” highlights the rich repertoire of organizing strategies as well as contemporary and historical examples of campaigns led by precarious workers around the world. We are bringing together feminist, queer, and BIPOC scholars, artists, and organizers to reflect upon the meanings of labor solidarity and care to imagine a more livable society.
Event Details

Date: Friday, March 7, 2025
Time: 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM PST
Location: James West Alumni Center, The Collins Conference Room, Los Angeles, CA
To RSVP: CLICK HERE

A Labor Studies Book Talk with Professor Eric Blanc
2025-04-29 13:00 - 15:00 | Online – Zoom
The UCLA Labor Studies program and Department of History will co-host a Labor Studies Book Talk with Eric Blanc, assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of We are the Union (UC Press, 2025) and will be joined by Alex Caputo-Pearl, UCLA Labor Movement Fellow and former UTLA president, and Mel Deorsola of Starbucks Workers United.
Blanc is also the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics (Verso, 2019). His research focuses on worker-to-worker organizing, strikes, digital labor activism, and working-class politics.
Join us for a conversation on how worker-to-worker organizing is revitalizing labor and winning big.
Event Details:

Date: April 29, 2025
Time: 1:00PM – 3:00PM Pacific Time
Location: Zoom

For those attending, please click here to RSVP.

A Labor Studies Book Talk with Professor Cedric de Leon
2025-05-07 13:00 - 14:30 | UCLA Bunche Hall 6275
Join us for a Labor Studies Book Talk with Cedric de Leon, professor of Sociology and Labor Studies at UMass Amherst, as he discusses his latest book, Freedom Train:Black Politics & the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity. This special event is in collaboration with the UCLA History Department and Sociology Department.
Drawing on a rich history of Black-led organizing, de Leon offers a powerful account of how multiracial labor coalitions were built—and what lessons they offer today.
Event Details:

Date: May 7, 2025
Time: 1:00PM – 2:30PM Pacific Time
Location: Bunche Hall, Room 6275

For those attending, please click here to RSVP.

Creating & Optimizing Your LinkedIn Account
2025-05-14 11:00 - 12:00
Join the UCLA Labor Studies program for a Spring Quarter Week 7 Career Development Presentation focused on “Creating & Optimizing Your LinkedIn Account.”
This virtual workshop will be hosted and presented by the UCLA Career Center and will take place on Wednesday, May 14, from 11:00am–12:00pm via Zoom.
(The Zoom link will be emailed to registered participants one day before the event.)
The presentation will provide students and alumni with practical tips on how to build a strong LinkedIn profile, showcase their skills and experiences, and leverage LinkedIn for career opportunities.
RSVP BELOW:
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2025 Labor@UCLA Research Showcase
2025-05-23 12:00 - 14:00
UCLA Labor Studies Faculty and Staff are excited to invite you to our third annual Labor@UCLA Research Showcase, taking place on Friday, May 23, 2025, from 12:00–2:00 PM.
This event is part of Undergraduate Research Week—UCLA’s largest undergraduate conference—celebrating student research and creative work across campus. Now in its tenth year, Undergraduate Research Week will run May 19–23, 2025.
Students who were selected will be presenting on past or current work developed for a capstone, honors theses, or other Labor Studies and related classes (both approved and related).
If you have any questions, please feel free to follow-up with Elizbeth Espinoza, espinoza@irle.ucla.edu or Caroline Luce, cluce@irle.ucla.edu.
Event Details:
Date: May 23, 2025
Time: 12:00–2:00 PM
Location: Public Affairs 2343 & Zoom
RSVP HERE
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Coffee & Cookies with our Labor Studies Student Affairs Officer
2025-10-08 12:30 - 14:00
Join us for an informal meet-and-greet with Gloria Chan, Labor Studies Student Affairs Officer (SAO)! Whether you’re curious about the Labor Studies major or minor, missed new student orientation, or are a returning student wanting to catch up on what’s new, this is the perfect opportunity to connect.
Drop by to:

Learn about program requirements and opportunities
Explore how Labor Studies might be the right fit for you
Ask questions about courses, advising, and career pathways
Enjoy coffee, cookies, and good conversation with Gloria

📅 Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2025🕧 Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM📍 Location: Bunche Hall 9246

2025 Labor Studies Open House!
2025-10-15 12:30 - 14:00
Discover all that Labor Studies at UCLA has to offer. At this event, you’ll have the chance to:

Meet our incoming Chair, Professor Jennifer Chun
Learn about the Labor Studies Major and Minor requirements
Explore our courses, programs, internships, and student opportunities
Connect with Labor Studies faculty and staff who are here to support your academic journey
Network with prominent labor organizations on campus during our mixer and tabling session

*LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED
📅 Date: Wednesday, October 15⏰ Time: 12:30 – 2:00 PM📍 Location: Bruin Reception Room🔗 RSVP: CLICK HERE!
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Labor Studies 10 Talk: Social Movement Unionism and Immigrant Worker Organizing with SEIU-USWW and CLEAN
2025-10-15 17:00 - 18:30 | Haines Hall, Room 39
Labor Studies 10 Talk
Social Movement Unionism and Immigrant Worker Organizingwith SEIU-USWW and CLEAN
Join us for an engaging discussion on how worker centers and unions are collaborating to advance immigrant worker organizing and the growing movement of social movement unionism.
Featuring:

David Huerta, President, SEIU-USWW and SEIU California State Council
Flor Rodriguez, Executive Director, CLEAN Carwash Worker Center

📅 Date: October 15, 2025
🕔 Time: 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
📍 Location: Haines Hall, Room 39
🔗 RSVP: bit.ly/LS10TALK

Labor Studies Now Series - Labor and Right in the U.S., Then and Now
2025-10-30 12:00 - 14:00 | History Conference Room, 6275 Bunche Hall
During the 2025-26 academic year, the newly formed Labor Studies Department will convene a series of public dialogues and research workshops on the theme, “Labor Studies Now.” Conversations will bring together faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, community leaders, and members of the public at-large to discuss urgent issues facing workers when it comes to social and economic inequality, environmental disaster, housing and food insecurity, and political turmoil.
The first conversation in the series features Kristoffer (Kit) Smemo, who explores whether organized labor can shape U.S. politics or is destined to play a junior role in a two-party system. In his new book, Making Republicans Liberal, Smemo shows how unions and the civil rights movement during the mid-twentieth century forced Republican leaders like Earl Warren, George Romney, and Nelson Rockefeller to swing left to win the votes of organized workers.
Date: Thursday, October 30
Time: 12 – 2:00 PM
Location: History Conference Room, 6275 Bunche Hall
RSVP HERE!

Labor Studies Now Series - Film Talk with Director Jennifer Cárcamo and Professor Leisy Abrego
2025-11-05 17:00 - 19:00 | Dodd Hall 121
Join us for a discussion of Eternos Indocumentados: Central American Refugees in the United States (2018), followed by a Q&A with Director Jennifer Cárcamo and Professor Leisy Abrego (UCLA Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies).
In July 2014, mainstream US media became flooded with images of what they termed “unaccompanied Central American children.” Most of these children—many coming with their parents—were fleeing from the violent consequences of U.S. intervention in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Once in the United States, they were detained in what migrants have come to label “hieleras” (ice boxes) in makeshift detention centers around the country. Rather than providing asylum to these refugees, the Obama Administration used this “humanitarian crisis” to expand the previously defunct practice of family detention. By the spring of 2015, more than 3,000 refugee women, children, and members of the LGBTQI community were illegally detained. Based on interviews with recently arrived Central Americans as well as interviews with organizers leading the struggle on the ground in Central America, this film captures the stories of Central American refugees and explores the root causes of forced migration.
This event is organized in conjunction with Prof. Jennifer Chun’s IDS 110 course: Culture, Power, and Development.
Speaker bios:
Jennifer A. Cárcamo is an independent filmmaker and scholar. She is currently a University of California President’s and Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine in the Chicano/Latino Studies Department, where she is completing her book manuscript Historias Prohibidas del Istmo: Central American Communists during the Rise of Twentieth Century Fascism, 1920-1940. She holds a PhD in History from UCLA and an MA in Documentary Film and History from Syracuse University.
Leisy J. Abrego is Professor in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Trained in sociology, she is a law & society scholar who studies the intimate consequences of U.S. foreign and immigration policies for Central American migrants and Latinx families in the United States.
Date: November 5 , 2025
Time: 5 – 6:45 pm
Event Address: Dodd Hall 121

RSVP HERE!

Labor Studies Now Series - Historias Prohibidas del Istmo: Central American Communists during the Rise of Twentieth Century Fascism
2025-11-06 14:00 - 15:30 | Bunche Hall 10383
Building from Dr. Jennifer Cárcamo’s current book project, this talk explores the historical and ideological origins of Central America’s communist parties, specifically in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, from 1920-1940. Cárcamo chose this period precisely because it preludes the revolutionary war period of the late twentieth century in Central America (1960-1996), an era that has received exceptional attention from scholars.
While Cárcamo’s book makes three central arguments regarding the development of both fascism and communism in Central America, for the purposes of this talk, she focuses on an excerpt from chapter 4, Bananas and (Wo)men: Communist Schoolteachers, Black Migrant Laborers, the Threat of Fascism in Costa Rica, which discusses the development of the first Communist Party of Costa Rica. Ultimately, in this chapter, Cárcamo argues that women, particularly schoolteachers, were influential figures in the formative and developing years of the first Communist Party of Costa Rica.
Speaker bio:
Jennifer A. Cárcamo is an independent filmmaker and scholar. She is currently a University of California President’s and Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine in the Chicano/Latino Studies Department, where she is completing her book manuscript Historias Prohibidas del Istmo: Central American Communists during the Rise of Twentieth Century Fascism, 1920-1940. She holds a PhD in History from UCLA and an MA in Documentary Film and History from Syracuse University.
Date: November 6 , 2025
Time: 2 – 3:30 pm
Event Address: Bunche Hall 10383
RSVP HERE!

Labor Studies Is Headed to the L.A. Ports
2025-11-07 07:45 - 16:00
Join us to meet key players from the Port complex, including union members from the docks and environmental hazard clean-up crews, a former POLA Harbor Commissioner, and a terminal operator.
The trip features a tour of an automated port terminal, a boat tour of the port narrated by an ILWU Local 13 member and retired dockworker, and a visit to the ILWU Local 56 union hall!
Seats on the field trip bus are limited and will be allocated on a first-come come first-served basis.
Details:

Depart UCLA at 8 am sharp
Return by 4 pm
Bring your own lunch — or eat at the San Pedro Fish Market during our lunch break!
The tour does include an hour-long boat ride in the port, so be prepared to ride a boat!
The port terminal is a secure space; all attendees must have a government-issued ID (DL, passport, or matricula-type cards are all fine) and pre-register with Labor Studies

Date: November 7, 2025
Time: 7:45 AM – 4 PM
Pick Up Location: Wyton South Stop, near roundabout
RSVP HERE!

Career Foundations Series: Resume & Cover Letter 101
2025-11-13 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Join the UCLA Labor Studies Department and the UCLA Career Center for a virtual workshop designed to help you craft effective resumes and cover letters.
Learn how to highlight your skills, experiences, and accomplishments to stand out to employers. Whether you’re applying for an internship, job, or fellowship, this session will provide practical tips and feedback to strengthen your application materials!
Date: November 13th, 2025
Time: 12 – 1 pm
Location: Zoom (link provided upon registration)
TO RSVP, CLICK HERE!

Drop-In Hour with Our Labor Studies SAO
2026-01-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Bunche Hall 9246
Join us for an informal meet-and-greet with our Student Affairs Officer. Whether you’re new to Labor Studies or a returning major or minor, this is a great opportunity to connect, ask questions, and enjoy coffee, bagels and fruit while learning more about program opportunities.
Date: January 21st, 2026
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Location: Bunche Hall 9246

Labor Studies Now - The U.S. Labor Movement in the 2020's: Achievements and Challenges
2026-01-29 12:00 - 13:30 | Haines Hall 130
Ruth Milkman is one of the world’s foremost sociologists of labor and labor movements, having written extensively on various topics related to work and organized labor in the United States, past and present. Her most recent books are Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat (Polity, 2020) and On Gender, Labor and Inequality (Illinois, 2016).
She was the 2016 President of the American Sociological Association and director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment from 2001 to 2008, when she was on the faculty in the Department of Sociology. She is currently Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, where she chairs the Labor Studies Department.
Date: January 29 , 2026
Time: 12 – 1:30 pm
Location: Haines Hall 130
RVSP HERE!

Immigrant Rights & Community Care Teach-In
2026-02-18 11:00 - 12:30 | Zoom
Join Labor Studies for an Immigration Know Your Rights Teach-In focused on supporting immigrant students and communities during a rapidly changing political time.
This teach-in will provide a Know Your Rights overview, share recent developments in local and state policy, and offer updates on immigrant justice efforts in California, including the ICE Out of California coalition. Participants will have space to ask questions and explore how students, faculty, and staff can show up in meaningful ways.
Date: February 18
Time: 11:00 AM–12:30 PM
Location: Zoom
RSVP HERE!

Cancelled - Ace Your Interview Workshop
2026-02-25 12:00 - 13:00 | UCLA Career Center Studio
Ace Your Interview is an interactive workshop co-hosted by the UCLA Labor Studies Department and the UCLA Career Center designed to help Labor Studies students feel confident and prepared for their next interview. Participants will learn how to effectively communicate their skills and experiences, answer common interview questions, and make a strong impression on employers.
Whether you’re interviewing for internships, jobs, or graduate programs, this workshop will offer practical tips and strategies to help you stand out.
💵 All attendees will be entered into a raffle for a $25 gift card. Please note that the gift card will be distributed a few weeks after the event.
Date: February 25th
Time: 12 – 1 PM
Location: UCLA Career Center Studio
RSVP HERE!

Labor Studies Now - Frame Backfire: The Trouble with Civil Rights Appeals in the Contemporary United States
2026-03-05 12:00 - 13:30 | Rolfe Hall 2125
Frame Backfire: The Trouble with Civil Rights Appeals in the Contemporary United States
While many scholars and activists consider civil rights to be a powerful, effective way to frame diverse causes in the United States, little is known about the contemporary resonance of civil rights appeals. In this talk, I will argue that civil rights can be understood in three non-mutually exclusive ways: as a “master” frame that appeals to core American ideals, as a reference to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and as racialized messaging. Drawing on survey experiments conducted at two different points in time, I will show that respondents express highly positive views of civil rights and broad agreement that civil rights are about equal rights. Yet, framing a person’s contemporary problems—including unequal treatment at work—as civil rights violations reduces support for government intervention. Civil rights framing is counterproductive across diverse issues, beneficiaries, and audiences. These findings complicate dominant assumptions about frame resonance, cannot be adequately explained through a racialized backlash account, and carry implications for collective memory scholars and activists. In closing, I will reflect on why the public responds negatively to civil rights appeals despite positive sentiment toward the abstract idea.
Speaker biography: Kim Voss is professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in the study of labor, social movements, inequality, and higher education. In addition to publishing in academic journals in sociology, political science, and demography, she has written or edited six books, including Rallying for Immigrant Rights (2011, with I. Bloemraad), Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement (2006, with R. Fantasia), Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth (1996, with five Berkeley colleagues), and The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993). She is currently working on a book about immigration and social movements.
Date: March 5 , 2026
Time: 12 – 1:30 pm
Location: Rolfe Hall 2125
RSVP HERE!

UCLA Industry Power Research Bootcamp
2026-03-16 - 2026-03-20
Industry Power Research Bootcamp
Convened by the UCLA Strategic Research Lab
Join the labor and other social movement researchers from around the country to learn the best ways to approach industry-based research and apply your findings to build industry-wide power.
As the NLRB continues to come under attack, unions and other labor groups that organize are increasingly looking at industries, not companies. To succeed, we need to understand how industries work and what powers and limitations come with a sectoral approach to campaigning.
In this five-day training, you will learn the basics of how to research an industry and explain your findings to members and other staff. We will bring expert campaigners to discuss key aspects of sectoral research, including:

Bounding your industry and understanding the product
How to think about supply chains
Spatial concentration and its effects on bosses and workers
Intersections between your industry and government regulators and policymakers
Considerations behind sectoral standards campaigns

The camp is designed for any movement researchers, strategic campaigners, activists, or organizers wanting to better understand how to think about sector-wide strategies.
The 2026 Industry Research Power Bootcamp applications window has closed. Stay tuned for information about future camps offered by the UCLA Strategic Research Lab and our annual Strategic Labor Research Conference!

About The UCLA Strategic Research Lab:
The UCLA Strategic Research Lab is a capacity-building training hub and network for researchers from labor and community-based organizations. As a research unit of a public university, the SRL seeks to train strategic researchers for the common good. Besides the Coding Camp for Union Research, the Strategic Research Lab also holds its annual Strategic Labor Research Conference, one of the largest annual convenings of labor and movement researchers in the nation.
Sign up for email updates for other Strategic Research Lab events and trainings here.

Book Talk: Steven W. Thrasher on The Overseer Class, In Conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley
2026-04-23 16:00 - 17:30 | Royce Hall 314
Date: April 23, 2026
Time: 4 P.M.
Location: Royce Hall 314
Steven W. Thrasher, PhD, will talk about his new book The Overseer Class (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2025). Based upon his reporting on the Black Lives Matter movement since he was covering Ferguson in 2014, Thrasher writes of observing an “overseer class” of Black cops, gay prosecutors, and people from marginalized background who amass their power by cracking the skulls of their own.

May Day Teach-In and Poster Session
2026-04-27 16:00 - 19:00
The UCLA Labor Studies Department is excited to facilitate the attendance of UCLA students to MAY DAY in Los Angeles!!!! May Day is the international celebration dedicated to workers. Occurring on May 1st, Los Angeles not only dedicates this day to honor the struggles of workers, but it also recognizes other social issues associated with the working class, particularly immigration. Each year May Day Coalitions throughout Los Angeles, as they do in other cities around the world, organize gatherings where thousands of people, organizations and supporters come together to bring awareness to the intersecting struggles of working people in their communities.
In preparation for May Day, Labor Studies 10 will be hosting a teach-in on past May Day events in Los Angeles, their impact on the city and its community members, and on the current May Day celebrations and their significance during these tumultuous political times.

Monday, April 27th
4-6:30 pm

Bunche Hall 2209A
RSVP HERE!

Teach-In – 4:00 – 5:45pm
Poster-Making Session 6-6:50pm

Book Talk: Jonathan Rosenblum on How Socialists Win, In Conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley
2026-04-29 16:00 - 17:30 | Royce Hall 314
Book Talk: Jonathan Rosenblum on How Socialists Win
In Conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley
Veteran labor organizer and journalist Jonathan Rosenblum discusses his new book, We’re Coming For You and Your Rotten System: How Socialists Beat Amazon and Upended Big-City Politics, an insider’s account of Seattle’s socialist city council member Kshama Sawant and the successful movement she led against corporate power and compromising labor leaders. An inspiring lesson for building worker power.
Date: April 29, 2026 @ 4 P.M.
Location: Royce Hall 314

May Day March
2026-05-01 10:00 - 15:00
Date: Friday, May 1st
Time: 10 AM
Location: MacArthur Park
This May 1st, join us at MacArthur Park at 10 AM and march alongside workers from every sector, trade, and craft.
This year’s message is clear: Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo. Come out and be part of LA’s annual May Day march! 📢
Students — we’re working on a bus from UCLA to MacArthur Park and back, plus a teach-in and poster-making session before the march. More details coming soon.

Labor Studies NOW Presents: Book Panel on Against Abandonment: Repertoires of Solidarity in South Korean Protest
2026-05-14 12:00 - 14:00
Profs. Jennifer Jihye Chun (UCLA) and Ju Hui Judy Han (UCLA) joined by Prof. Tobias Higbie (UCLA), Prof. Jong Bum Kwon (Webster University), Prof. Hannah Appel (UCLA), and Prof. Zeynep Korkman (UCLA)

Thursday, May 14, 2026
12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Bunche Hall, Room 10383
RSVP HERE!

About the Book
Against Abandonment: Repertoire of Solidarity in South Korean Protest (Stanford University Press, 2025) offers insight into the utility and futility of protesting precarity under neoliberal capitalism. Based on long-term ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with key labor and social movement activists, the book follows the protests of minoritized workers, especially women employed in precarious jobs, as they contend with what it means to be treated as disposable and what it takes to resist. Long-term protest camps, life-threatening hunger strikes, grueling prostrations, perilous high-altitude occupations are agonizing to perform and to witness but often powerful as affective catalyst of change. Through dramatic performances and rituals that repeat across time and space, Against Abandonment finds that protesters cultivate repertoires of solidarity as a relational force that binds people and worlds together in a collective praxis of refusal. In doing so, Against Abandonment builds upon intersectional, transnational, and abolitionist feminist theorizing that has long emphasized the centrality of building relations of care and community in place-based struggles against capitalist abandonment.
Moderated by Tobias Higbie, Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) at UCLA, it will begin with brief comments by Jennifer Jihye Chun (Asian America Studies at UCLA) and Ju Hui Judy Han (Gender Studies at UCLA), which will be followed by an open ended dialogue among panelists, with Jong Bum Kwon (Webster University), Hannah Appel (Anthropology at UCLA), and Zeynep Korkman (Gender Studies at UCLA).
Discussion
Moderated by Prof. Tobias Higbie, Dept. of History, UCLA

Hannah Appel is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Global Studies and Associate Faculty Director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. She is the author of The Licit Life of Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2019) and cp-founder and organizer with the Debt Collective. She is also author of the forthcoming book Debtors Unions: Countervailing Power and Abolitionist Presence in the Age of Finance and co-author of Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition (Blackstone Publishing, 2020).
Jennifer Jihye Chun is Professor of Asian American Studies and Labor Studies at UCLA. She is the author of Organizing at the Margins: the Symbolic Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States (ILR Press, 2009) and co-author of Against Abandonment: Repertoires Solidarity in South Korean Protest (Stanford University, 2025). She is interim Chair of the Department of Labor Studies and has a faculty teaching appointment in the International Institute.
Ju Hui Judy Han is Associate Professor in Gender Studies at UCLA. Han is the author of Queer Throughlines: Space of Queer Activism in South Korea and the Korean Diaspora (University of Michigan Press, 2025) and co-author of Against Abandonment: Repertoires Solidarity in South Korean Protest (Stanford University, 2025). She is currently working on a decolonial travel guide to Korea and a new project on the “feminist take” on contemporary cultural politics.
Tobias Higbie is Professor of history and Labor Studies and the Director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) at UCLA. He is a labor historian whose research explores the intersection of work, migration, and social movement organizing in the United States. He is the author of Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930 (University of Illinois Press, 2003) and Labor’s Mind: A History of Working-Class Intellectual Life (University of Illinois Press, 2019).
Zeynep Korkman is Associate Professor of Gender Studies at UCLA. Her research explores the gendered relationships between affect, labor, religion, and transnational feminist politics, with a focus on Turkey and the broader Middle East. She is the author of Gendered Fortunes: Divination, Precarity, and Affect in Postsecular Turkey (Duke University Press, 2023). Her ongoing research investigates the affective and laborious contents and discontents of transnational feminist solidarity.
Jong Bum Kwon is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Webster University. His research interests include cultural anthropology, urban studies, globalization, race and ethnicity, ethnographic methods, with a focus on contemporary Korean labor and capitalism and Asians in America. His current research project focus on the dilemma of whiteness in St. Louis, Missouri, in the wake of the Ferguson Uprising and Black youth’s aspirations and social mobility in the time of BLM and white nativism.

2026 Labor@UCLA Research Showcase
2026-05-22 13:00 - 15:00 | Public Affairs 1323 & Zoom
Date: May 22nd
Time: 1-3 P.M.
Location: Public Affairs 1323 & Zoom
RSVP HERE!
We are excited to announce our 4th annual Labor@UCLA Research Showcase – Friday, May 22nd, 2026 from 1-3 pm in-person at Public Affairs 1323 and via zoom! This event is part of Undergraduate Research Week. Undergraduate Research Week is a week-long celebration of undergraduate research and creative inquiry at UCLA. Students from all disciplines gather to share their innovative and impactful work with the UCLA community at events such as the Undergraduate Research & Creativity Showcase.
Now in its 28th year, Undergraduate Research Week, which will be held May 18-22, 2026, is UCLA’s largest undergraduate conference. Labor Studies is an interdisciplinary program of study, which critically analyzes the theory and practice of current workplace issues. Students develop a deeper understanding of the relationships between their education and society at large and how they, as college graduates, can transform the nature of work. Students who were selected will be presenting on past or current work developed for a capstone, honors theses, or other Labor Studies and related classes (both approved and related). Lunch will be provided for in-person attendance.
If you have any questions, please feel free to follow-up with Elizbeth Espinoza, espinoza@irle.ucla.edu.

Building a Career in the Labor Movement Panel
2026-05-27 12:30 - 13:30 | Rolfe Hall 3129
Building a Career in the Labor Movement Panel
Join us for a Labor Career Panel featuring speakers working across advocacy, hospitality organizing, immigration, and the labor movement, including one speaker currently pursuing graduate studies. Learn about their professional journeys, experiences in and beyond graduate school, and the different paths they’ve taken to build careers connected to social justice and labor.
Date: Wednesday, May 27th
Time: 12:30 – 1:30
Location: Rolfe Hall 3129
RSVP HERE!
Speakers include Sheheryar Kaoosji (Executive Director at Warehouse Workers Resource Center), Jessica Durrum (Director of LAANE’s hospitality campaign), and Adriana Ramirez (Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology, UC Berkeley).

The Past, Present, and Future of Jews and the Labor Movement in Los Angeles
2026-05-28 17:30 - 20:00 | UCLA Labor Center
Thursday, May 28, 2026 • UCLA Labor Center • 5:30 PM
675 S Park View Street, Los Angeles, CA 90057
What drew Jewish immigrants to the labor movement? How did unions become distinctly “Jewish” spaces — and what happened when they changed? Join historians, organizers, and community leaders for a panel on Jewish labor activism in Los Angeles: from the open-shop battles of the early 20th century to today.
Featuring:
Rabbi Aryeh Cohen (Professor, American Jewish University)
Kathy Finn (President, UFCW Local 770)
Jackie Goldberg (retired educator and elected official)
Leora Swerdlow (Associate, Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers LLP)
RSVP HERE!
Sponsored by The UCLA Department of Labor Studies, the UCLA Labor Center, the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, Jewish Partnership for Los Angeles, the Jewish Labor Committee, LA Voice, UFCW Local 770 and UNITE HERE Local 11.
