Labor Speaker Series | Critical Industrial Relations: centering social identity in our understanding of the employment relationship
2023-04-20 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Public Affairs 5391
Topic: Critical Industrial Relations: centering social identity in our understanding of the employment relationship with Tamara Lee
Date: Thursday, April 20th
Time: 2 PM – 3:30 PM PT
Location: Public Affairs 5391 (in-person)
How does our understanding of employment practices and worker responses deepen or shift when we take a critical lens centered in the counternarratives of marginalized workers? Discussing her work on racialized worker control at Amazon’s fulfillment centers and contemporary uprisings for social and economic justice, Professor Lee explores the opportunities for theory and praxis when we challenge traditional colorblind approaches to understand labor law, employer tactics and worker responses to injustice inside and outside of the workplace.
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Garment Workers Speak Out!
2023-04-27 14:00 - 16:00
When the pandemic hit, US retailers canceled clothing orders abroad, resulting in millions of garment workers being laid off without pay or severance. On April 27, Chhorpesal Chhom and Sreymich Hai – who were fired from Hulu Garment factory in Cambodia, where they sewed products for Amazon and Adidas – will visit the UCLA campus to speak about the wage theft and retaliation they endured, and the need for accountability from major brands. Come speak directly with workers who produce your clothing and to learn about how you can support garment workers in their struggle for justice.
When: April 27, 2pm
Where: UCLA campus (RSVP for info) – livestream on zoom
RSVP: nikesteals.com/ucla

Labor Studies Coffee Chat with Danette Garcia
2023-04-27 16:00 - 17:30 | Bunche Hall 3164
Topic: Labor Studies Coffee Chat with Danette Garcia, LA City Attorney Director of Community & Government Affairs and UCLA Labor Studies alum
Date: Thursday, April 27th
Time: 4 PM
Location: Bunche Hall 3164
Join us for a Coffee Chat with LA City Attorney Director of Community & Government Affairs and UCLA Labor Studies alum, Danette Garcia and moderated by Micaela Aragon, Labor Studies major and communications work-study. This will be an informal space for students to ask questions about her position, her journey to working for the LA City attorney, experience working for campaigns, and how Labor Studies played a role in her journey to where she is today.
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May Day 2023
2023-05-01 16:00 - 18:30
Join the May Day Coalition for the 2023 Los Angeles May Day March! This year’s theme is “Solidarity is Power: Right to Unionize, Right to Strike, Right to Housing, & Right to Citizenship.” The event will bring people from all walks of life to stand in solidarity with one another and raise awareness of labor, housing, and immigration struggles across our city and the nation.
May 1st is International Workers Day or May Day. Throughout the world, communities not only dedicate this day to honor the struggles of workers, but they also recognize other working-class issues. Each year, the May Day Coalition in Los Angeles organizes one of the many marches which gather thousands of people, organizations, and supporters to bring awareness to the intersecting struggles of the working-class people of Los Angeles and the world. This year’s May Day march and rally theme will be “Solidarity is Power”: Right to Unionize, Right to Strike, Right to Housing, & Right to Citizenship. You can find more information about the event, including the program, map, and meeting spots if you want to join from downtown LA, public transportation info, checklist of what to bring… HERE.
DATE: May 1, 2023
TIME: We will meet 4 PM. The march begins at 5 PM.
MARCH START LOCATION: Southwest corner of Olympic & Broadway, Downtown Los Angeles
Please fill out this google form in case you would like to join our Labor@UCLA contingent in downtown LA for May Day. We have confirmed a 50-passenger bus (leaving from UCLA to May Day and back) for students from our Labor Studies courses and allied undergraduate and graduate students to attend. The sign-up list for the bus is first come, first serve, with students in Labor Studies 10 given priority.

Behind the Scenes/Unheard Voices of the Strike
2023-05-04 17:00 - 18:30 | Public Affairs 1246
In the Fall of 2022, graduate student workers from the University of California participated in one of the largest strikes in higher education history. As a result, student workers learned valuable lessons about feeding and sustaining one another on and off the picket lines.
Join us for a panel discussion about the work that often goes unrecognized behind the scenes with opening remarks by Rosie Stockton and Da In Choi.

Date: Thursday, May 4th
Time: 5:00-6:30pm
Location: Public Affairs 1246

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Film Screening: Dignidad
2023-05-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Transfer Student Center (Kerckhoff 128)
We are excited to invite you to a special film screening of “Dignidad: California Domestic Workers’ Journey for Justice!” This documentary follows domestic workers as they organize for workplace protections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Join us as we celebrate the victories, reflect on lessons learned, and gear up to continue the fight for domestic worker health and safety.
Date: May 24th @ 6 PM
Location: Transfer Student Center (Kerckhoff 128)
RSVP @ bit.ly/film-dignidad
For any questions, feel free to reach out to us at:
Neome Astudillo: neomegethsemane@g.ucla.edu
William Dang Nguyen: wdangnguyen@g.ucla.edu
Abeeha Hussain: abeehahussain@ucla.edu

Labor @ UCLA Research Summit
2023-05-26 11:00 - 13:00 | Public Affairs 2343
This event is part of Undergraduate Research Week, where 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.
Selected students for this summit will present past or current work developed for a capstone, honors thesis, or other Labor Studies and related classes.
Date: Friday, May 26th
Time: 11 AM – 1 PM
Location: Public Affairs 2343 / Zoom
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Labor Speaker Series | Labor and the Politics of Inflation, Past and Present
2023-06-05 14:00 - 15:30
Topic: Labor and the Politics of Inflation, Past and Present with Dr. Samir Sonti
Date: Monday, June 5th
Time: 2 PM – 3:30 PM PT
Location: Chicano Studies Research Library/Zoom
*Zoom information will be sent out in reminder email after you RSVP
Join us with Dr. Samir Sonti to discuss how the arrival of inflation during the pandemic has spurred considerable debate over both the causes of rising prices and the optimal means of achieving price stability. In the mid-twentieth century, inflation stood as one of the most contested political issues, and it was one with which the labor movement was, by necessity, deeply engaged.
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Writing Workshop for Labor Studies: A Reading and Celebration
2023-06-06 18:30 - 20:00 | Rolfe Hall 3129
Please join us for a celebration featuring Labor Studies students reading their original work, including poetry, song, memoir, fiction, and research! This event is part of LBRSTD 188-4, Writing Workshop for Labor Studies, a creative writing class for Labor Studies majors, Labor Studies minors, and other interested students.
Special Guest: Author Saba Waheed, Research Director, UCLA Labor Center
Date: Tuesday, June 6th, 6:30-8:00 pm.
Location: Rolfe Hall 3129 / Zoom
Refreshments will be provided by Labor Studies. Hope to see you there!
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Labor Studies Internship Capstone Presentations
2023-06-09 11:00 - 13:00 | Moore Hall 1003
Join us for our showcase of research completed by Labor Studies majors who took the internship capstone in the 2023 Winter/Spring quarters.
Date: June 9th, 2023, 11 AM – 1 PM
Location: Moore Hall 1003 / Zoom

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IRLE Public Talk with Labor Center Director Candidate John Logan
2023-09-27 10:30 - 12:00 | 4320 Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Dear IRLE Community,
Please join us for the first of three campus visits by candidates for the position of UCLA Labor Center Director. Each applicant will give a talk and lead a conversation on their vision for the future of the Labor Center. We encourage staff, community members, and affiliated faculty to join us and provide feedback on each candidate.
This provides our community the opportunity to interact with prospective applicants and truly get a sense of what each applicant envisions should they be selected as the next Labor Center Director. The public talks will be thirty minutes long, followed by thirty-minute Q&A sessions. We hope you consider joining us next week as these public talks begin. RSVP details for our first public talk are listed below:
Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023
10:00 am – Registration
10:30 am – Public Talk Begins
11:00 am – Q&A
11:30 am – Community and Board Members Engagement
Location:
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA Campus
337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Room 4320
RSVP HERE
Live Zoom Option:
https://ucla.in/3LzqExa
Meeting ID: 951 7496 8724
Passcode: [REDACTED]
John Logan on the Future of the UCLA Labor Center

John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor Studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and a visiting research associate at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, where he is also a member of the external advisory board. Under his leadership, the Labor Studies program has taught over 25,000 SFSU undergraduates and placed several dozen Labor Studies majors in union jobs at the state, national, and international levels. Between 2000-2009, he was an assistant and associate professor of comparative labor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he convened the master’s programs in International Employment Relations and European Labor Studies. He was also Research Director at the UC Berkeley Labor Center from 2009-2010 and a postdoc at the UCLA Institute for Labor and Employment from 2001-2003. Logan has published widely on unions, labor law, and employer opposition to unionization, both in the United State and internationally, including, most recently, several articles on the high-profile union campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon. His publications have appeared in Industrial Relations, British Journal of Industrial Relations, New Labor Forum, Journal of Labor Research, International Labor and Working-Class History, International Union Rights, Dissent, Advances in Labor and Industrial Relations, and Work Organization, Labor, and Globalization, State of California Labor, and many other journals. Logan has worked extensively with state, national and global union federations over the past twenty years and has conducted union research in countries ranging from India to Malawi to Paraguay. He has also published over 200 opinion columns in major publications – including The Hill, The Conversation, The Guardian, Associated Press, Reuters, Politico, San Francisco Chronicle, Jacobin, and many others – and he has been quoted and interviewed on labor issues in state, national, and international media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Reuters, The Guardian, CNN, NPR, BBC News, Bloomberg TV, thousands of times.
During this public talk John will outline his vision for the growth and development of the UCLA Labor Center as a nexus of labor scholarship, innovation, and debate over the next 5-10 years. He believes the labor movement is at a particularly promising juncture, especially in California, and the UCLA Labor Center has unique potential to play a key leadership role in bringing together academics, practitioners, students, and the community to advance labor education and research. He will discuss methods such as the expansion of the Labor Studies program, direction of applied research projects, increased public programming, and heightened engagement with the university, labor movement, and community, including through student participation in internships and research, by which such goals can be attained. He will outline his plan to further establish the UCLA Labor Center as the premier national institution for labor scholarship and how that will attract a diverse, dedicated, and dynamic group of individuals to the Labor Center as students, speakers, and instructors; uplift California workers and unions; and position the Labor Center as a sought-after and expert contributor to discourse about labor and workers’ rights across the state, nationally, and globally

IRLE Public Talk with Labor Center Director Candidate Francisco Garcia
2023-09-29 10:30 - 12:00 | 4320 Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Dear IRLE Community,
Please join us for the second of three campus visits by candidates for the position of UCLA Labor Center Director. Each applicant will give a talk and lead a conversation on their vision for the future of the Labor Center. We encourage staff, community members, and affiliated faculty to join us and provide feedback on each candidate.
This provides our community the opportunity to interact with prospective applicants and truly get a sense of what each applicant envisions should they be selected as the next Labor Center Director. The public talks will be thirty minutes long, followed by thirty-minute Q&A sessions. We hope you consider joining us next week as these public talks begin. RSVP details for our second public talk are listed below:
Friday, Sept. 29, 2023
10:00 am – Registration
10:30 am – Public Talk Begins
11:00 am – Q&A
11:30 am – Community and Board Members Engagement
Location:
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA Campus
337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Room 4320
RSVP HERE
Live Zoom Option:
https://ucla.in/48x6az1
Meeting ID: 971 6690 5917
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Francisco Garcia on Nonviolence and Social Movements & the Future of the UCLA Labor Center

Francisco García is a PhD Candidate in Theological Studies, Ethics and Action at Vanderbilt University and serves on the leadership team of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School as a Doctoral Fellow. He also serves as an Assistant Chaplain for Justice Ministries at St. Augustine’s Chapel in Nashville. He has a BA and MA in Latin American Studies and an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA where he focused on community development and labor issues; his MA thesis explored collaborative strategies for unions and worker centers in Los Angeles. Francisco is a seasoned organizer, educator, and leader in community, labor, faith, and academic settings. In the labor movement Francisco worked in various organizing, negotiating, and leadership capacities with workers in both the public and private sectors with SEIU, UAW, AFSCME and Warehouse Workers United. His organizing commitments led him to attend seminary at the Claremont School of Theology (obtaining a Master of Divinity) and he was later ordained an Episcopal priest; in this capacity he has provided pastoral, administrative, and justice-focused leadership at various parishes in Southern California, most recently as the Rector of Holy Faith Episcopal Church in Inglewood. He served many years on the board of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) and as a clergy leader with Faith in Action group L.A. Voice. He currently serves on the national advisory committee of Bargaining for the Common Good and the board of the Interreligious Network for Worker Solidarity. Francisco’s dissertation explores the role of faith among Latinx/immigrant workers organizing for justice in their workplaces and communities.
For his public talk, Francisco will share about his experience, insights, and vision for leading the UCLA Labor Center into the foreseeable future. Drawing upon the decades-long legacy and strength of the Labor Center in labor education, research, policy, organizing and movement building, Francisco will discuss the current labor landscape, and offer his assessment of the challenges and opportunities that the Labor Center and its many partners have to further advance and sustain an intersectional labor justice agenda in Los Angeles, California, and beyond. As part of this conversation, Francisco will share ideas for deepening the Labor Center’s important work around nonviolence and social movements, and the role of community, interfaith, and labor coalitions in this effort. Francisco will emphasize a collaborative, relational, and strategic approach to supporting the staff and programs of the Labor Center as it works within the context of a large public university system and ever-changing social, political, and economic contexts.

IRLE Public Talk with Labor Center Director Candidate Saba Waheed
2023-10-06 10:30 - 12:00 | 4320 Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Dear IRLE Community,
Please join us for our final campus visit for the position of UCLA Labor Center Director. Each applicant will give a talk and lead a conversation on their vision for the future of the Labor Center. We encourage staff, community members, and affiliated faculty to join us and provide feedback on each candidate.
This provides our community the opportunity to interact with prospective applicants and truly get a sense of what each applicant envisions should they be selected as the next Labor Center Director. The public talks will be thirty minutes long, followed by thirty-minute Q&A sessions. We hope you consider joining us next week for our third and final public talk. RSVP details are listed below:
Friday, Oct. 6, 2023 Location:
10:00 am – Check-In and Reception
10:30 am – Public Talk Begins
11:00 am – Q&A
11:30 am – Community and Board Members Engagement
Location:
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA Campus
337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Room 4320
RSVP HERE
Live Zoom Option:
https://ucla.in/3ES4kLD
Meeting ID: 993 1343 5211
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Saba Waheed on How Research and Narrative Change Can Advance Worker Movements

Saba Waheed is Research Director at the UCLA Labor Center. She has over twenty years of research experience developing projects with strong community participation. With her team at the UCLA Labor Center, she coordinated the first-ever study of domestic work employers, launched a multi-year study of workers and learners, and conducted research on the impact of the pandemic on nail salon workers and owners. She has also conducted research related to gig workers, young workers, Black workers, LGBTQ+ grocery workers and retail workers. Saba teaches the Labor Summer Research Program, guiding students through an applied research project. Previously she worked as the Research Director at DataCenter where she co-developed the “research justice” framework which aims to address the structural inequities embedded in traditional research methods. In addition to her research work, Saba is an award-winning writer and co-produces the podcast Re:Work. Saba strongly believes that research and media are powerful tools for community storytelling. She received an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University and a BA in English and Religious Studies from UC Berkeley.
Saba Waheed’s talk will trace her contributions in research justice and narrative change and how these areas align with the UCLA Labor Center’s aim to expand its research capacity, storytelling, and school-to-movement pipeline. The talk will pay particular attention to how participatory methods and teaching tools, like popular education, position workers as creators of knowledge and advocates of their own working conditions. Such approaches are a core feature of the Labor Center’s critical engagement with immigrant and worker communities and collectively shape research policy, action agendas, and recommendations for worker and social movements across multiple scales. The talk will also detail her vision for the Labor Center: to implement and amplify research and leadership programs in academic and other public spaces; to support staff development and equity; to build strong and transparent structures; and to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the organization. This vision is rooted in the value of collaborative methods of engagement with staff, the IRLE, and faculty, alongside our union, community, and student partners. Last, the talk will be grounded in the Labor Center’s mission that recognizes how the university serves public interest needs and leverages resources to improve the lives of immigrants, working people, those locked out of the workforce, and our student base.

Screening and Talkback: "Backstreet to the American Dream"
2023-10-10 18:00 - 20:00 | James West Alumni Center
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and in partnership with UCLA Labor Studies, enjoy a screening of the award-winning documentary “Backstreet to the American Dream,” directed and written by Patricia Nazario ’91, with executive producer/Medal of Freedom recipient Dolores Huerta.
This modern-day look at the classic American Dream is done through the quintessential 21st Century entrepreneurial endeavor — food trucks. “Backstreet to the American Dream” is a deep dive into the birthplace of the $2 billion global industry, Los Angeles. The 90-minute feature profiles two trucks and juxtaposes the experiences of American entrepreneurs and Mexican immigrants.
After the screening, enjoy a talkback from the filmmaker, the protagonist and two faculty members at the UCLA Labor Center who were featured in this film.
Date: Tuesday, October 10th
Time: 6-8pm
Location: James West Alumni Center
RSVP: CLICK HERE

Meet the Speakers:
Patricia Nazario ’91 is an international and Congressional Award distinguished journalist. She was on assignment for the National Public Radio affiliate, KPCC, in Los Angeles, when she realized the food truck revolution was a game-changer and began producing the independent bilingual documentary for theatrical release “Backstreet to the American Dream.”
Gaspar Rivera Salgado is a project director at UCLA Labor Center, as well as a core faculty member of the Labor Studies interdepartmental program, under the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. He is also the director of the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies. He teaches classes on work, labor and social justice in the U.S. and immigration issues.
He also directs the Institute for Transnational Social Change and has extensive experience as an independent consultant on transnational migration, race and ethnic relations,and diversity training for large organizations.
Victor Narro is a nationally known expert on immigrant rights and low-wage workers. He has been involved with immigrant rights and labor issues for almost 40 years and is currently a project director for the UCLA Labor Center. Teaching classes that focus on immigrant rights, low-wage workers, the labor movement, and spirituality, mindfulness and self-care in social justice activism, Narro is a core faculty member for Labor Studies. He also teaches courses in the Public Interest Law Program at UCLA’s School of Law.
Doña Guillermina, is the owner/operator of El Pescadito, a mariscos lonchera. Guillermina was born in Nayarit, Mexico, and is the oldest of nine siblings. In 1976, she gave birth to her first child, Felipe. Shortly after arriving to the U.S., she found work on a food truck. She bought her own in 1982 and has been parking in the same neighborhood ever since.

“Manufacturing Freedom”: Elena Shih Book Talk
2023-10-19 12:15 - 13:45 | Haines Hall 352, Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
About the event
The UCLA Transnational Gender and Labor Working Group, IRLE, and CSW|Streisand Center invite you to join Professor Elena Shih to discuss her new book, Manufacturing Freedom: Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking Rehab, and the Racial Wages of Rescue (UC Press, 2023).
About the book
Sex worker rescue programs have become a core focus of the global movement to combat human trafficking. While these rehabilitation programs promise freedom from enslavement and redemptive wages for former sex workers, such organizations actually propagate a moral economy of low‑wage women’s work that obfuscates relations of race, gender, national power, and inequality. Manufacturing Freedom is an ethnographic exploration of two American organizations that offer vocational training in jewelry production to women migrants in China and Thailand as a path out of sex work. In this innovative study, Elena Shih argues that anti‑trafficking rescue and rehabilitation projects profit off persistent labor abuse of women workers and imagined but savvily marketed narratives of redemption.
About the author
Elena Shih is Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University, where she directs a human trafficking research cluster through the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Shih is the author of two books: Manufacturing Freedom: Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking Rehab, and the Racial Wages of Rescue (University of California Press), and White Supremacy, Colonialism, and the Racism of Anti-Trafficking (Routledge). Shih serves on the editorial boards for The Anti-Trafficking Review, a peer-reviewed journal of the Global Alliance to Combat Traffic in Women, and openDemocracy’s Beyond Trafficking and Slavery op-ed platform. In 2018 Shih was appointed to the Rhode Island State Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights. Recent op-eds about her research and organizing as a core collective member of Red Canary Song appear in the New York Times and Providence Journal. She earned a PhD in Sociology from UCLA, and a BA in Asian Studies from Pomona College.
*Please RVSP for the room number and to secure lunch.
Date: Thursday, October 19, 2023
Time: 12:15 – 1:45 pm PDT
Location: Haines Hall 352, Portola Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095
View event flier PDF
RSVP HERE

Fly in Power Film Screening and Q&A
2023-10-20 17:00 - 20:00 | Darren Star Screening Room 1422, 235 Charles E Young Dr., Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
About the Event

The UCLA Transnational Gender and Labor Working Group, IRLE, and CSW|Streisand Center in collaboration with Red Canary Song and SWOP LA invite you to join the film screening of Fly in Power, followed by a Q&A with Elena Shih and a SWOP LA speaker.
Fly in Power follows Charlotte, a Korean massage worker and core organizer of Red Canary Song (RCS), a social justice collective of Asian diasporic massage workers, sex workers and allies who basebuild through mutual aid. Through her history, we learn how the carceral system is pitted against Asian migrant women and their survival. The documentary is a glimpse into the intimate spaces that not only connect these women and non-binary queers, but is also a testament to the global advocacy of women’s rights to work and thrive. The documentary is directed by Yin Q, a Queer, Chinese American parent, writer, and sex worker rights advocate, and Yoon Grace Ra, a cultural organizer working with audio/visual media.
This film has been produced entirely by women, non-binary, trans and queers of the Asian diaspora—more than half of the production team are former/current sex workers. Each story centers the narrative of an Asian massage worker in her own words, enabling us to witness the trust built between the film team and the participants with their own agency of storytelling and editing. Fly in Power premiered in March this year in Flushing, Queens. Since then it has been shown at various universities and film festivals including the San Francisco Sex Worker Film Festival, the Los Angeles Asian and Pacific Islander Film Festival where it won Grand Jury Prize Best Documentary, and the 46th Asian American International Film Festival.
A catered reception will follow after screening and Q&A.
*The Darren Star Screening Room is located in Melnitz Hall and situated on the northeast corner of the UCLA campus in Westwood, next to the Broad Art Center and the Murphy Sculpture Garden.*
Date: Friday, October 20, 2023
Time: 5 – 8 pm PDT
Where: Darren Star Screening Room
235 Charles E Young Dr N Melnitz Hall 1422 Los Angeles, CA 90095
View event flier PDF
RSVP HERE

Labor Studies 10 presents: #HotLaborSummer Panel
2023-10-24 15:00 - 17:00 | UCLA Fowler Auditorium
Join Kent Wong, Director of the UCLA Labor Center, in conversation with Los Angeles labor community organizers who led the fight for workers this summer. Speakers will include strike captains from UNITE-HERE, SAG-AFTRA, WGA, and SEIU 721, who will discuss their experiences on the picket line.
Learn how a #HotLaborSummer can transform the American labor movement from the ground up and what fights remain ahead for workers in 2024 and beyond.
Date: Tuesday, October 24th
Time: 3pm
Location: UCLA Fowler Auditorium – 103B / Zoom
RSVP: bit.ly/LS_hotlaborsummer
*Light refreshments will be served

Labor Studies Coffee Chat with the Labor Studies Student Union (LSSU)
2023-11-07 14:00 - 15:00 | Kaplan Hall A26
Join us on Tuesday, November 7th from 2-3 pm for a coffee chat with leaders from the Labor Studies Student Union (LSSU).
This will be a space to not only learn more about the LSSU, what it stands for, why it was created, and what the future of this union is, but also a space to give feedback on the Labor Studies program and what you’d like to see from us!
Date: Tuesday, November 7th
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Location: Kaplan Hall A26
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Port of Los Angeles Field Trip
2023-11-09 08:00 - 17:00 | Port of Los Angeles
UCLA Labor Studies and @ILWU Local 13 invite students to a free worker-centered tour of the Port of Los Angeles.
You will have the opportunity to take a boat tour of the Port, view memorials to workers on the waterfront, visit a union hall, and learn about the role of unions in the logistics industry. Lunch and transportation to/ from UCLA will be provided for free.
Date: Thursday, November 9, 2023
Location: Port of Los Angeles
RSVP: bit.ly/LS_LAPort

Schedule:
7:45am: Arrive at UCLA Gateway Plaza
8am-9:15am: Bus to Port of Los Angeles
9:30-10:30am: Port of LA Boat Tour
10:30-11:15am: Visit Harry Bridges Memorial in San Pedro
11:30-2:15pm: Visit ILWU Local 13 Memorial Hall (lunch included)
2:30-4pm: Bus to UCLA Gateway Plaza

Labor Studies Coffee Chat with Professor Victor Narro
2023-11-21 14:00 - 15:00 | Kaplan A26
Join us on Tuesday, November 21st from 2-3 pm in Kaplan A26 for a coffee chat with activist, Labor Center project director, and Labor Studies Professor, Victor Narro

Professor Victor Narro is an experienced activist, with thirty years as a leader in the immigrant and labor rights movements. Additionally, he has worked as a labor/immigration attorney for just as long and also serves as the UCLA Labor Center’s project director. During the academic term, he teaches at the UCLA Law School as well as to Labor Studies undergraduates. Each summer, his course, Spirituality, Mindfulness, Self-Care & Social Justice, draws in students from all over looking to avoid burnout while organizing.

Date: Tuesday, November 21st
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Location: Kaplan Hall A26

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Labor Studies Speaker Series: Molly Benitez
2023-11-29 10:30 - 12:00 | 4320 Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Molly Benitez (they/them) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Portland State University. Molly’s research sits at the intersections of race, gender/sexuality, and labor and utilizes ethnographic and autoethnographic methods to record and analyze the experiences of LGBTQ+ trades workers.
They are currently working on their manuscript tentatively titled, Becoming Your Labor: Identity Production and the Affects of Labor where they weave together these intersections along with theories of work and affect theory (traced through women of color) to analyze how the conditions of work (physical, social, and cultural) produce and reproduce workers’ identities, bodies, and communities, or how work works on laborers.
In 2018 Molly co-founded the Seattle-based Reckoning Trade Project and Junqtion, a virtual community space made by and for LGBTQ+ trades workers. In 2022 Molly founded the LGBTQ+ Trades Worker Archive housed at the Harry Bridges Labor Center at the University of Washington. Molly currently sits on the board of the National LGBTQ Worker’s Center.
Talk Title: This is our house and you’re coming into it”: Embodiment and the Affects of Labor
Description: “This is our house and you’re coming into it”: Embodiment and the Affects of Labor, shares the experience of Z, a young, non-binary, biracial, queer person as they navigate their first few weeks in a pre-apprenticeship construction trades program. Z shares how they negotiate their gender identity, trauma, and anxiety in a labor field that has been historically dominated by white, cis-gender, working-class men as well as the strategies they deploy for survival.
Thinking along with Z’s experience, Dr. Benitez utilizes affect theory, traced through women of color feminisms and queer of color theory, to articulate how the ‘affects of labor’—the visceral and active consequences of our working environments—produces and reproduces workers’ bodies, identities, relationships, and communities, often in small, imperceptible ways that have lifelong consequences. This talk highlights the way work— all of our work—is a dialectical process in which workers produce for labor and are in turn produced by their labor
RSVP: https://forms.office.com/r/dMc1akkQW3
Event Location: In-Person + Zoom
Public Talk: 10:30am-12pm
In-Person: Labor Studies Speaker Series events will take place at the Public Affairs Building 4320. Coffee and water will be served.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92369635586?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 923 6963 5586
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Labor Studies Speaker Series: Heather Berg
2023-12-01 16:00 - 17:30 | 4320 Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Heather Berg writes about work, sex, and social struggle. Her 2021 book, Porn Work, explores workers’ creative strategies for surviving (and sometimes thriving) in an industry in crisis. Winner of the Working-Class Studies Association’s C.L.R. James “best book” award, it locates porn workers as experts on the politics of precarity. Her current book project, Lumpen Theory: Notes from the Sex Worker Left, engages anti-capitalist sex workers’ political thought on the family, class, the state, and violence. Berg is the editor of the South Atlantic Quarterly special issue “Reading Sex Work.” Her writing on sexual labor, gig work, and feminist political economy appears in Signs, WSQ, Feminist Studies, and Critical Historical Studies, among others. A graduate of UC-Santa Barbara’s Feminist Studies PhD program, she is assistant professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
Talk Title: Sex Workers, Against Work
Description: “Sex Workers, Against Work” surveys Berg’s research on sex workers’ struggles for labor justice now and a world beyond work in the future. The talk moves from porn workers’ interventions on the set shop floor to anti-capitalist sex workers’ critical encounters with the civilian labor Left.
RSVP: https://forms.office.com/r/qPxD1tqBE0
Event Location: In-Person + Zoom
Public Talk: 4-5:30pm
In-Person: Labor Studies Speaker Series events will take place at the Public Affairs Building 4320. Coffee and water will be served.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucla.zoom.us/j/92337485806?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 923 3748 5806
Passcode: [REDACTED]

The Fight For Quality Public Education and Worker Rights
2023-12-05 14:00 - 15:30 | Fowler Auditorium A103B, 308 Charles E Young Dr N, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, United States
Join us on December 5th at 2pm at Fowler Auditorium A103B for a talk with UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz.
Cecily helped to lead a successful 3-day strike in March 2023 that brought together 60,000 teachers and classified workers of the Los Angeles Unified School District. She has emerged as a leading voice for worker rights and quality public education.
Everyone is welcome to attend.
Date: Tuesday, December 5th
Time: 2:00pm
Location: Fowler Auditorium A103B

Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America
2023-12-07 12:00 - 13:30 | UCLA Bunche Hall 6275
Join us on December 7th from 12-1:30pm at UCLA Bunche Hall 6275 for a book talk with Margot Canaday as she discusses her new book, “Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America.” Lunch will be provided.
Margot Canaday, Princeton University Dodge Professor of History, is an award-winning historian who studies gender and sexuality in modern America. She is the author of The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth Century America (Princeton, 2009) and co-editor of Intimate States: Gender, Sexuality, and Governance in Modern U.S. History (Chicago, 2021). Her book, Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America (Princeton, 2023), explores the ways that the workplace has mattered for queer people over time, both as a site of vulnerability and exploitation but sometimes also of deep meaning.
Co-sponsored by the UCLA History of Gender & Sexuality Working Group, History Department, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Center for the Study of Women, Luskin Center for History and Policy, Gender Studies Department, LGBTQ Studies, Labor Studies, and the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute
Date: Thursday, December 7th
Time: 12pm – 1:30pm
Location: UCLA Bunche Hall 6275

Labor Studies Speaker Series: Charmaine Chua
2023-12-07 15:00 - 16:30 | Public Affairs Building 4320, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles
Charmaine Chua is a Singaporean scholar and organizer, and is currently an assistant professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interdisciplinary scholarly and political work is interested in how planetary networks of production and distribution shape the organization of racialized and classed divisions within capitalist social formations, with particular attention to how these divisions are lived and contested through workers and community struggles.
She is currently writing two books, The Logistics Counterrevolution: Fast Circulation, Slow Violence and the Transpacific Empire of Circulation, and How to Beat Amazon: The Struggle of America’s New Working Class (co-authored with Spencer Cox). Her work has been published in The Socialist Register, Theory and Event, Antipode, Environment and Planning D, The Boston Review, and Jacobin, among other venues, and her research has been quoted or featured in news outlets including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, De Correspondent, and Le Monde. She is an editor of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , a founding faculty member of the Marxist Institute of Research, and organizes with Cops off Campus, Amazonians United, and UCSB Academics for Justice in Palestine. In 2023, she was named a Freedom Scholar, an award recognizing academics who demonstrate a long-term commitment to supporting social movements.
Talk Title: The Logistics Counter-revolution: Fast Circulation, Slow Violence, and the Transpacific Empire of Circulation
Description: The rise of the global logistics industry has profoundly impacted global workers’ struggles by organizing goods movement through a politics of just-in-time circulation. Although scholars have often dubbed this phenomenon “the revolution in logistics,” in this talk I argue that the so-called ‘logistics revolution’ is better understood as a counter-revolution. Tracing the historical conjuncture of the rise of logistics with the end of formal empire, I ask: What did the rise of logistics look like from the vantage of the decolonizing Global South? As anti-colonial leaders and trade unions in Southeast Asia pursued economic sovereignty during the “Third World’s” transition to independence, they nationalized industry, seized colonial property, and sought to build national shipping and industrial capacity. To contain this threat to private enterprise, US and UK shipping corporations, backed by their states, pursued the globalization of supply chain infrastructures.
RSVP: bit.ly/laborspeaker_chua
Event Location: In-Person + Zoom
Public Talk: 3-4:30 PM
In-Person: Labor Studies Speaker Series events will take place at the Public Affairs Building 4320. Coffee and water will be served.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucla.zoom.us/j/98707640233?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 987 0764 0233
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Voices For New Democracy Forum: The Fight For Immigrant Rights
2023-12-10 16:00 - 17:00 | Zoom
Join us on December 10 at 4pm PT/7pm ET through Zoom for a discussion on immigrant rights.
With the 2024 election less than one year away, immigration has once again emerged as a pivotal issue in the upcoming Presidential race. Trump is already ramping up anti-immigrant rhetoric, while Biden has failed to secure immigration reform.
What can we do to continue to fight for immigrant rights in this critical time?
Featured Speakers:

Jose Calderon, Professor Emeritus, Pitzer College
Pablo Alvarado, National Day Labor Organizing Network
Karely Amaya, Undocumented Student Leader

Date: Sunday, December 10
Time: 4pm PT/7pm ET
Location: Zoom

Labor Studies Speaker Series: Sara Gia Trongone
2023-12-13 12:00 - 13:30 | Public Affairs Building 4320, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles
Sara Gia Trongone is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research examines contemporary labor movement renewal in the U.S. and the ways in which unions and worker organizations adapt to a changing economy. In her dissertation, she explores how workers win social, economic, and political power, the conditions under which those wins spread or scale, and what induces social movement organizations to coordinate through a comparative case study of four worker organizations in Chicago. Her research has been published in Mobilization and Work and Occupations. She is a Graduate Research Fellow with the Institute of Research on Poverty and an active member of the Wisconsin labor movement. Prior to starting her Ph.D. program, she received a master’s degree from the NYU Steinhardt School of Education, focusing on critical pedagogy.
Talk Title: Working for the Public Good: Organizational Dilemmas & Strategy in Public Sector Unions
Description: This talk examines the growing surge of labor mobilization in the public sector and its roots in Chicago after the 2008 financial crisis. Through a matched case comparison of two public sector union locals, I explore why the U.S. has seen a wave of ‘common good’ strikes among educators but not other public sector workers. Using comparative-historical analysis, I generate a theoretical framework that accounts for variation in strategic decisions among unions operating outside of a traditional market relationship. I find that strategy is mediated by what I call organizational dilemmas, or the set of obstacles and opportunities that derive from how the state organizes public services, the nature of the labor process, and the structure of workers’ organizations.
RSVP: bit.ly/laborspeaker_trongone
Event Location: In-Person + Zoom
Public Talk: 12-1:30 PM
In-Person: Labor Studies Speaker Series events will take place at the Public Affairs Building 4320. Coffee and water will be served.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucla.zoom.us/j/97048837464?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 970 4883 7464
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Labor Studies Coffee Chat with the #Opportunity4All Campaign!
2024-02-28 12:00 - 13:00 | Bunche Hall 3153
Join us on Wednesday, February 28th between 12 pm to 1 pm for a coffee chat with members of the #Opportunity4All campaign!
This is a casual event for Labor Studies students to learn about ways to support undocumented students and find ways to become involved.
Date: Wednesday, February 28th
Time: 12pm – 1pm
Location: Bunche Hall 3153
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Thinking Gender 2024: "Dystopian Realities, Feminist Utopias"
2024-03-01 08:30 - 18:00 | Collins Alumni Conference Room at UCLA James West Alumni Center
UCLA’s CSW|Barbra Streisand Center presents 34th Annual Graduate Student Research Conference on Friday, March 1st, 2024.
Thinking Gender 2024’s conference theme, “Dystopian Realities, Feminist Utopias,” considers what it means to live in the cataclysmic wake of racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and neoliberalism. At the same time, the theme celebrates how feminist, queer, and BIPOC scholarship, activism, and art enact utopias by imagining alternatives to hegemonic structures.
The theme seeks to explore how dystopianism serves as an apt metaphor to explore and critique social and political issues related to gender, race, class, and sexuality and how utopianism is an ethical mandate to imagine a better present and future.
IRLE is a co-sponsor of this event.
Date: March 1, 2024
Time: 8:30am – 6:00pm
Location: James West Alumni Center, The Collins Conference Room
RSVP HERE.

Career Development Workshops within the Labor Commissioner’s Office and Department of Industrial Relations
2024-04-23 14:00 - 15:30
The California Labor Commissioner’s Office (LCO) is hiring! Join UCLA Labor Studies and the UCLA Labor Center to learn more about career opportunities within the LCO and Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) to support their mission of improving working conditions for California’s workers.
This winter and spring, the UCLA Labor Center will lead workshops to provide students with resources for preparing state employment applications. The workshops will break down the application process, teach best practices for applications, and provide time for students to ask questions about the process and start working on their applications. A member of the LCO team will also talk about their experience and path to the LCO.
The workshops will include a resume workshop, so please come to the session with a completed resume.
Workshop Date: April 23rd @ 2-3:30pm
Location: Zoom
RSVP HERE.
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Check out the current job listings here: calcareers.gov

Job control number: JC-425332 or click here
Job control number: JC-425361 or click here
Job control number: JC-425373 or click here
