Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: The Garage Sale
2012-02-02 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: The Informal as Praxis
2012-01-26 00:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: Together - The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation
2012-01-19 00:00

Book Talk: "Urban Sustainability in the Age of Climate Justice: Lessons from Metro Phoenix"
2012-01-12 14:30 - 16:00
Thoughtful people look to cities for evidence that progress is being made in the fight to avert climate change. The “sustainable cities” movement is thriving all across the world, and mayors compete for the title of “greenest city in America.” In this lecture, drawing on his own research in the metro Phoenix area, Andrew Ross shows that the key solutions are more social than technical in nature. Marketing a green lifestyle to affluent residents will create showpiece sustainable enclaves, but will not alter the patterns of “eco-apartheid” that afflicts most large U.S. cities.
Ross’s new book, Bird On Fire, based on extensive interviews in the region, looks at some of Phoenix’s biggest challenges–water management, urban growth, immigration policy, pollution, energy supply, and downtown revitalization–in light of his arguments for policies that promote environmental justice.

"Working for Nothing: The Latest Fast-Growth Sector?"
2012-01-12 12:30 - 14:00
Corporate profits have never been higher, at a time when the real unemployment has soared. Have bosses learned how to get by without workers? Not really, but the evidence suggests a growing reliance on new kinds of free labor to boost the balance sheet of companies that are canny enough to harvest it. Free, or token-wage, labor is increasingly available though a variety of channels: crowdsourcing, data-mining, prosumerism, or other sophisticated digital techniques for extracting rents from user/participants; expanded prison labor programs; the explosion of unpaid near-obligatory internships in every white-collar sector; and the whole gamut of contestant volunteering that has transformed so much of our commerce in culture into an amateur talent show, with jackpot stakes for a few winners and hard-luck schwag for everyone else.

Who is Occupy? Profile of Users of the Occupy Wall Street Website: A Window into the Demographics of an Evolving Movement
2011-12-01 14:00 - 15:30

Annual Ben Aaron Labor Law Lecture: "Rhetoric, Reaction and Rule of Law at the NLRB"
2011-11-16 18:00
Presented by Wilma Liebman, former Chair of the National Labor Relations Board
From Wisconsin to Capitol Hill, we have witnessed an escalating battle over the very legitimacy of labor law and existence of collective bargaining rights. The political and economic environment in which this conflict is occurring has ratcheted up the attacks and overheated the rhetoric, exposing a divide as profound as any on the domestic policy front. While the NLRB, from the beginning, has been no stranger to controversy, events of the last few years have represented a record accumulation of difficulties. Recent actions by the Board and its Acting General Counsel, including efforts to revitalize the Agency and its procedures, have triggered intense reactions by Congress, the business community, and the media. While the imperative for a sober dialogue over a fair labor policy could not be more real, what we have instead is rancorous political rhetoric.
Former NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman will discuss the Board’s recent activities, the political controversy they have triggered, and the persistent challenges to the enduring values of the National Labor Relations Act — including the rule of law itself — all critical to a democratic society and a fair economy.

Book Talk -"Breaks in the Chain: What Immigrant Workers Can Teach America About Democracy"
2011-11-03 12:30 - 14:00

"New Zealand's Lessons for the US: Bringing Democratic Representation into Non-Majority American Workplaces"
2011-10-17 12:30 - 14:00

"More Than a Labor of Love: Organizing Home Care"
2011-08-29 00:00

"Which Way Forward for Swedish Unions? A Power Resources Perspective"
2011-06-01 12:30

"Labor in the Global South: A Search for Solutions"
2011-05-27 15:00 - 2011-05-28 18:15
It is critical to reexamine the position of labor in the global South, in the context of momentous changes underway in the global economic and political order. Consider some of those changes: Newly rising powers, such as Brazil, China, and South Africa, are assuming greater roles. Increasing numbers of voices are questioning neoliberal prescriptions and market fundamentalist solutions, and pushing for a broader conception of development that includes social as well as economic dimensions. New movements for democracy are stirring in the Middle East, along with continuing struggles over the degree and nature of democracy across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At the same time, informal and irregular employment continue to make up a huge proportion of jobs in the global South, and the fickleness of global capital flows undermines attempts to carry out sustainable development and upgrade job quality. The UN estimates that over 200 million people world-wide are international migrants (above all from poorer to richer countries), and migrant remittances constitute a major income strategy for families and indeed whole countries in the South.
In this context, it is important to take stock of the state of work and workers in the global South, and to share best practices and critiques of strategies to upgrade jobs and empower workers. This conference will bring together graduate students from the United States and around the world to bring their own research to bear on these issues. The goal is not just to exchange information, but to advance discussions about strategies and solutions. To this end, graduate student presentations, which will make up the bulk of conference content, will be supplemented by innovative labor-related practitioners from the South, in addition to senior academics from the United States.

"Building 'Welfare Power' in 1960s Los Angeles: The Strategic Alliance between the Chicana Welfare Rights Organization and the Social Workers Local 535"
2011-05-25 12:30

UCLA Labor Center 2011 Banquet
2011-05-19 00:00
Honoring: Mike Eng, Assembly Member California 49th District; Kamala Harris, Attorney General, State of California; Sid C. Stopler, Business Manager/Financial Secretary-Treasurer, Southern California Pip Trades District Council 16

"The Immigrant Rights Protests of 2006: Explanatory Quandaries and Future Prospects"
2011-05-18 12:30

Book Talk: "Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music and Race in the United States"
2011-05-11 15:00 - 17:30

Workers' Memorial Day
2011-04-30 11:00 - 14:00

"Worker Health & Public Policy: Still a Burning Issue?"
2011-04-28 12:00 - 13:30

"A New Industrial Democracy? Recent Trends and Changes in the French Labor Movement"
2011-04-27 12:30

"Public Sector Workers - Over Fed or Fed Up?"
2011-04-21 17:00 - 19:00

"Seeking Spatial Justice: Labor-Community Coalition Building in Los Angeles, 1965-2010"
2011-04-20 12:30

"Lula's Hegemony and Brazilian Labor Relations: The Case of Call Centers and their Unions"
2011-04-13 12:30 - 2013-04-13 00:00

Conference - "Reconnecting to Work: Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment and Prospects for Job Creation"
2011-04-01 14:00 - 2011-04-02 17:20
Despite the fact that the recovery began in the third quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate in the United States remained at 9.4% in December and the U.S. is still experiencing record levels of long-term unemployment. Even if the recovery should continue and grow stronger, the Congressional Budget Office does not expect the overall unemployment rate to drop to 5% until 2014 and others predict it will take even longer. Those people who have been out of work for six months or more are likely to be among the last to find jobs. Thus, the alarmingly high rate of long-term unemployment in the U.S. is likely to persist for many years.This day and a half conference will be held on April 1-2, 2011 on UCLA’s campus. It will focus on the consequences of long-term unemployment and the policies that are needed to address it. The program includes presentations examining the psychological and economic consequences of long-term unemployment as well as policies intended to increase job creation and get the long-term unemployed back into jobs.

'The Prospects for Domestic Regulation of Labor Standards in a Globalized Labor Market"
2011-03-16 17:00

Panel: "Defending the American Dream: Government Enforcement of Workplace Rights in an Age of Income Inequality"
2011-03-16 00:00

"The South Korean Labor Movement: Recent Struggles and the Challenges of "Marginal" Workers"
2011-02-23 12:30

"Toward a Tripartite Labor Relations System with Chinese Characteristics"
2011-02-07 12:30

Film Screening - “Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program”
2011-01-28 12:00
Hidden within the historical accounts of minorities, workers and immigrants in American society is the story of the millions of Mexico’s men and women who experienced the temporary contract worker program known as the Bracero Program. Established to replace an alleged wartime labor shortage, research reveals that the Program intended to undermine farmworker unionization. Harvest shows how several million men, in one of the largest state managed migrations in history, were imported from 1942 to 1964 to work as cheap, controlled and disposable workers. The documentary features the men speaking of their experiences and addresses what to expect from a new temporary contract worker program. Visit the film’s website for clips.

"Work-Family Conflict: A Parent's Problem"
2011-01-19 12:30
