Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Human Persons, Incompressible Needs and Minimum Wages in Post-war France
2012-04-25 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The passage of minimum wage legislation in 1950 led to one of the odder chapters in the history of French bureaucratic committees. Paul Bacon, Minister of Labor, convened a High Commission on Collective Bargaining in April of that year to measure a model worker’s budget. Over thirty members strong, the meeting assembled major leaders of all three unions, representatives of large and small employers, artisans, managers, family associations and a number of state bureaucrats. Over the following two months, these men hashed out the principles and the practice of a new republican minimum standard of living. No point proved too fine for debate, from theoretical reflections on science and measurement to the durability of underwear.The minimum wage commission appears an exemplary moment in postwar French consumer society. First, it enacted a political contest between unions and employers, mediated by the state and family associations. Second, as it called upon expert testimony, the commission participated in the emergence of an empirical, policy-oriented postwar social science. Third, the commission’s work reflected French citizens’ everyday struggle to reconcile scarce resources and expanding consumer desires

Panel - Organizing Workers in the Informal Economy: Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa ... and Los Angeles
2012-04-20 18:00 - 21:00
Across the globe, workers in the informal economy are organizing — from trash recyclers in Brazil and day laborers in China, to street vendors in Mexico and domestic workers in South Africa. Researchers from these countries will join labor activists from Los Angeles on a panel discussion about these and other organizing efforts, and discuss how labor unions and governments have responded to these grassroots campaigns.

Learning from the Past to Change the Future: 20 Years of Justice for Janitors
2012-04-19 00:00

Wisconsin and the Assault on the Public Sector
2012-04-16 14:00 - 17:00
What is the political background to the systematic attack on public sector unions, and on the publicsector more generally, in Wisconsin, elsewhere in the Midwest, and in other places in the US? To
what extent does it have the support of the electorate and the broader public? Our speakers will
consider this issue in connection with their analysis of the historic explosion of working class
resistance in Wisconsin in February 2011, which broke a long period of labor quiescence in the US.
They will evaluate the role of the trade unions in this conflict, asking if broader, more militant
tactics were a realistic option. They will discuss the recall campaign that emerged as the main form
of carrying on the struggle, asking what are its chances for success and what it can accomplish.
They will debate the future of the movement, in connection with their understanding of the
relationship between the Wisconsin uprising and the Occupy movement that came to fore to
continue struggle the eight months later…posing the question of what role can Occupy play in
catalyzing, and supporting, battles by the trade union movement and working people more
generally.

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Series: Crystals, Mud and Space: Street Vending Informality
2012-03-15 00:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: The Logical Reproduction of Informality among Low Income Self-Help Communities in the USA
2012-03-08 00:00

IRLE Graduate Student Research Conference: Participatory Democracy and Social Justice Struggles: From Port Huron to #Occupy
2012-03-06 00:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: America's Playground: Informal Sociability Among Atlantic City's Street Homeless
2012-03-01 00:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: Place as a Site of World-Making
2012-02-23 00:00

Book Talk - "NAFTA and the Politics of Labor Transnationalism"
2012-02-22 12:30 - 14:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: To Regulate or Not: Day Labor, Worker Centers and Inequality
2012-02-16 00:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: Tending to Life and Plants in Los Angeles: Latino Immigrant Workers and Gardeners
2012-02-09 00:00

Book Talk - "States' Gains, Labor's Losses: China, France, Mexico Choose Global Liaisons, 1980 - 2000"
2012-02-08 12:30 - 14:00

"Understanding the Brazilian Labor Success Story"
2012-02-02 12:30 - 14:00

UCLA Lewis Center Informal City Speakers Series: The Garage Sale
2012-02-02 08:00 - 17:00

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
