Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Labor Studies 101: The Global Struggle for Platform Workers’ Rights Beyond Proposition 22
2021-05-27 10:30 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online
On Thursday, May 27th activists from the UK, Spain, Italy and Belgium will join students from the UCLA Labor Studies Program to discuss recent developments in the global struggle for platform workers’ rights.
In California, Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have invested more than $200 million to pass Proposition 22 by granting platform companies an exemption from local labor laws to continue the practice of hiring workers without social security, paid sick leave and the right to organize and bargain collectively. The CEOs of corporations, such as UBER, suggested that Proposition 22 would set a precedent for the gig economy at the international level.
However, platform workers have mobilized across the world to promote a more just regulation of this sector. Between February and April 2021, the UK Supreme Court and Italian Labor Inspectorate dictated landmark rulings against Uber, Deliveroo JustEat and Glovo that established the classification of platform workers as employees by providing them with labor rights and social protections. At the same time, the European and Spanish parliaments are discussing groundbreaking law proposals that would require more transparency in the management of data by companies.
Alex Marshall, president of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB), Isabel Chacón from Taxy Project and Riders X Derechos in Spain, Anne Dufresne, co-founder of the first European network of food delivery workers and Paolo Borghi, member of the grassroots union, Deliverance Milano and postdoctoral scholar at the University of Milan, will discuss how the struggle for labor rights in the platform economy has advanced after California passed Proposition 22.
Watch on Facebook Live at 10:300AM PT on May 27th.

Career Conversation: "Lessons from a Recent UCLA Graduate" with Ashley Michel
2021-05-25 11:00 - 12:00 | Online
What is work life like after graduation? Interested in working for a non-profit organization connected to worker’s rights? Join us for our last virtual hangout of Spring Quarter, Tuesday, May 25th, from 11am-12pm to connect and have a stress-free, informal Q&A with UCLA Labor Studies recent UCLA graduate and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) community organizer Ashley Michel. Let’s share space one more time this year to have a casual conversation about nonprofit sector jobs and get some firsthand work tips and truths from a first-gen professional.
Ashley is a first-generation student who graduated from UCLA in 2021 with a major in Labor Studies and minor in Chicanx & Central American Studies. The granddaughter of Bracero farmworkers, Ashley was born in the California Central Valley and grew up in the San Diego-Tijuana border region, where she was raised by a domestic worker. While at UCLA, she was involved in AAP’s Research Rookies, the Labor Summer Research Program, UNITE HERE Local 11, and SLAP. As the former Labor Studies communications student assistant, she created content for our social media and was one of the original masterminds behind Labor Studies Virtual Hangouts! Now, Ashley works as a Community Organizer for LAANE & Reclaim our Schools L.A.
RSVP HERE.

The Drivers – A Short Play About the Experiences of Uber/Lyft Drivers
2021-05-19 16:00 - 17:00 | Online
Join us on Wednesday, May 19 at 4PM PT as we premiere The Drivers – A Short Play About the Experiences of Uber/Lyft Drivers performed by students from Labor Studies 152, Winter 2021: Work, Social Justice and Arts taught by Professor Janna Shadduck-Hernández.
Play Description
During the height of the COVID 19 pandemic, four Uber drivers meet in the morning at LAX. The play follows each driver throughout the day, culminating in their return to LAX that evening. This play explores the isolation of the American Worker, the shared bonds of their humanity, and the extremes that individuals go to for survival.
This play was developed by the performers through interviews and writing exercises, later compiled by Kyle J McCloskey – an MFA playwright here at UCLA – to create the experience of small moments that make up a life for rideshare drivers during the pandemic.
Performers

Kyle J. McCloskey – UCLA MFA student – playwright and actor
Emely Molina – UCLA Undergraduate student – actor
Samreen Siddiqui – UCLA Undergraduate student – actor
Joel Ojeda – UCLA Undergraduate student – actor
Jacob Skarr – UCLA Undergraduate student – narrator

WATCH HERE

Book talk | Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism with Allyson Brantley
2021-05-18 14:00 - 15:00 | Online
Join us for a Book Talk on Tuesday, May 18th at 2pm with Dr. Allyson Brantley, author of Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism. Brewing a Boycott tells the story of one of the longest anti-corporate campaigns in U.S. history, the Coors Boycott. From the 1950s to the 1990s, union members, progressive students, Black and Chicano activists, Native Americans, feminists, and members of the LGBTQ+ community built a powerful coalition to fight the antiunionism, discrimination, and notoriously conservative politics of Coors Brewing Company. The activists at the heart of this campaign built bridges between divided communities, developed innovative campaign strategies, and refused to give up until the company met their demands. The story highlights the vibrancy of activism in the final decades of the twentieth century and the enduring legacy of that organizing for communities, consumer activists, and corporations today.
Dr. Allyson Brantley teaches, researches, and writes about the history of the United States, particularly in the 20th century. Her interests include the history of consumer culture, social movements and activism, and the US-Mexico borderlands. Dr. Brantley received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2016 and her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Her recent publications include “Borderlands of Work,” a review for the New Labor Forum, and “’Mexico, At Our Very Door’: Prohibition-Era Brewing in the US-Mexico Borderlands,” in the Journal of the West (Summer 2016).
Join us on Facebook Live: facebook.com/UCLALaborStudies

Career Conversations: Careers at the Labor Commissioner's Office with Juliet Ovalle & Jocelyn Lopez
2021-05-13 16:00 - 17:00 | Online
Are you interested in the California Labor Commissioner’s Office? Are you wondering how you can apply to this government sector job after graduation? Find out during our next virtual hangout Thursday, May 13th, from 4-5pm, where we connect and have an informal Q&A with UCLA alumni Senior Deputy Labor Commissioner Jocelyn Lopez and Field Enforcement Deputy II Juliet Ovalle. Let’s share space and have a casual conversation about careers with the CA Labor Commissioner’s Office!
Jocelyn is a first generation college student who graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science and a minor in Labor and Workplace Studies. Despite her limited knowledge in the system and struggling to navigate college and build a career, Jocelyn has gone on to receive her Masters in Public Administration from Cal State Long Beach and is now a Senior Deputy Labor Commissioner at the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, under the Judgment Enforcement Unit and she’s also a labor studies lecturer at Los Angeles Trade Tech College. Jocelyn is very thankful to her college counselors and mentors who guided her along the way and look forward to helping those beginning their journey as well.
Juliet was born in Colombia and immigrated to LA at the age of four. As a transfer student at UCLA, 2007-2009, Juliet created student-initiated campaigns that supported campus workers from AFSCME Local 3299, Russell Athletic UCLA divestment campaign in support of Honduran garment workers, and the Save the UCLA Labor Center campaign. After graduating, Juliet obtained an internship with the Community Labor Environmental Action Network (C.L.E.A.N) Car Wash Campaign where she was then hired as a full time organizer and eventually became a lead organizer. Today, Juliet is a Deputy II with the Bureau of Field Enforcement of the California Labor Commissioner’s Office and a proud mom of an energetic five-year-old.
RSVP Here

UCLA Bruin Bound: Labor Studies Virtual Events for Transfer Students
2021-05-07 - 2021-05-20 | Online
The Labor Studies Interdepartmental Program offers UCLA undergraduates an opportunity to learn about the workplace and the social, political, and economic forces that influence it. To learn more about our program, we invite you to attend our UCLA Bruin Bound Labor Studies Virtual Events.
Click here to download a PDF of our event calendar with links.

Labor Studies 101: The Pathbreaking Justice for Janitors Campaign
2021-04-22 17:00 - 18:15
On Thursday, April 22nd at 5:00pm, Jono Shaffer and Stephen Lerner will join students of the UCLA Labor Studies program to talk about the pathbreaking campaign Justice for Janitors. The architects behind one of the most important union organizing campaigns of the last few decades will explore how Justice for Janitors expanded into a global movement by providing an important model for the future of organizing.
Jono Shaffer is a Los Angeles based organizer with SEIU. He worked on and helped lead the Justice for Janitors Campaign in Los Angeles.
Stephen Lerner is a labor and community organizer and architect of the groundbreaking Justice for Janitors campaign. He is now working with unions and community groups on Bargaining for Common Good campaigns

Watch the webinar LIVE at facebook.com/uclalaborstudies

Virtual Hangout: "Career Conversations on Labor Law with Patricia Hernandez, J.D."
2021-04-07 18:00 - 19:00 | Online
What is Labor Law? How do you know when you’ve found your passion? Join us to connect and have a stress-free, informal Q&A with UCLA alumnae, labor attorney, and social justice advocate, Patricia Hernandez. Let’s share space and have a casual conversation about careers this quarter. All, including new first-year and transfer admits, are welcome!
About Patricia: Patricia Hernandez is a labor attorney and union representative for the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, headquartered in California. She’s had an amazing career in the labor movement. As a student at UCLA from 1988-1992, Patricia majored in English with an emphasis in Chicana/o Studies. She was a MECHA activist and leader while at UCLA. She co-founded a women’s committee within MEChA Calmécac. Through MECHA, she became involved in the ground-breaking SEIU Justice for Janitors campaign in LA. Then, while continuing her studies she worked as a social services interpreter and organized her own union of those interpreters, now AFSCME 2700 in Contra Costa County. Patricia has spent 21 years with UAPD and has also run for state assembly as the first Latina to run for state office in Solano and Contra Costa Counties!
RSVP here.

UCLA Bruin Bound: Labor Studies Virtual Events
2021-04-03 08:00 - 2021-04-16 17:00 | Online
The Labor Studies Interdepartmental Program offers UCLA undergraduates an opportunity to learn about the workplace and the social, political, and economic forces that influence it. To learn more about our program, we invite you to attend our UCLA Bruin Bound Labor Studies Virtual Events.
Click here to download a PDF of our event calendar with links

Labor Studies Faculty Teach-In: Earners and Learners
2021-03-08 12:00 - 12:45 | Online
The Workers and Learners Faculty and Student Luncheon
Monday, March 08, 2021 from 12:00 pm-12:45pm
Bring your favorite on-the-go snacks and drinks!
Are you an educator interested in learning about your students’ working and learning experiences during the pandemic? Are you a student working while you’re in school? You’re not alone. UCLA Labor Studies student researchers are excited to share some of our findings and recommendations from our recent study, Unseen Costs: The Experiences of Workers and Learners in Los Angeles County along with two complementary briefs on Workers and Learners experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Join graduating Labor Studies majors in an unmuted dialogue!

Learn about the experiences faced by workers and learners
Hear from students about the zoom and lecture techniques that are helping working students
Share your faculty experiences during this challenging time
Ask questions to workers and learners about their needs

Join the meeting: http://bit.ly/faculty-student-lunch

Virtual Hangout: “On the Mindful Road to Grad School”
2021-03-01 12:00 - 13:00 | Online
Stressing about life after graduation? Ever wonder what Grad School is like and have worries or questions on how to navigate the process? Join us on our next virtual hangout, Monday, March 1st @ noon, where we tackle some of this confusion while also learning how to stay mindful during the process. Let’s share space and have a casual conversation about grad school. All are welcome! Join us and let this be a mindful step towards your Grad School journey!
About Virtual Hangouts: We believe that community finds a way to persist despite physical distances – so join us for our Labor Studies Zoom Hangouts! Ask faculty & staff questions, connect with peers, or just hang out in our informal and casual Zoom sessions.
Open to NEW and CURRENT students.
RSVP Here

Virtual Hangout: "Social Media: Creating, Consuming, and Connecting with Intentionality"
2021-02-23 13:00 - 14:00 | Online
Let’s talk not about how to use social media less, but how to use it more intentionally. Join members of the Labor Studies and Labor Center communications teams as we discuss tips on using social media as a tool to fuel our creativity, make us more productive, and build genuine connections. Learn about our social media strategy and discuss how you can create or consume meaningful content on your own platforms!
About Virtual Hangouts: We believe that community finds a way to persist despite physical distances – so join us for our Labor Studies Zoom Hangouts! Ask faculty & staff questions, connect with peers, or just hang out in our informal and casual Zoom sessions.
Open to NEW and CURRENT students.
Register HERE.

Virtual Hangout: “Self-Love and Radical Confidence”
2021-02-12 13:00 - 14:00 | Online
Join our Labor Studies community as we hold space to discuss how we express confidence and how our exploration of self-love and compassion can be a positive and pleasurable experience. This student-led virtual hangout is centered around mindfulness, mutual care, and introspection.
About Virtual Hangouts: We believe that community finds a way to persist despite physical distances – so join us for our Labor Studies Zoom Hangouts! Ask faculty & staff questions, connect with peers, or just hang out in our informal and casual Zoom sessions!
Open to NEW and CURRENT students!
Register HERE.

"We Gone be Alright: Developing the Next Generation of Black Organizers" Webinar
2021-01-28 17:30 - 18:30 | Online
Check out the UCLA Labor Center’s CARE at Work Initiative (Center for Advancing Racial Equity, UCLA CARE) and their new UCLA and LATTC cross-campus course, We Gone Be Alright: Developing the Next Generation of Black Worker Organizers. On Thursday, January 28th at 5:30 PM, they will be hosting an orientation for the course and discuss tenets of their hands-on community organizing and movement building curriculum. The orientation will also involve the initial recruitment for its CARE Freedom Summer Internship, a paid internship with the Black Labor Center’s Southern California projects. For more information, reach out to us via email at careatwork.UCLA@gmail.com or @ucla_careatwork on Instagram & Twitter!
To register, click here.

Future of Organizing Under Technological Revolution
2020-12-09 10:00 - 11:30 | Online
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many countries around the world have classified food and grocery delivery workers as “essential workers.” While the pandemic has exacerbated the violation of workers’ safety and rights by platform companies, transnational activist networks across Europe, Latin America, Asia and the U.S. have strengthened existing alliances as workers frame their exposure to COVID-19 and the lack of social protections as a common ground for collective action.
As part of this panel, activists from Madrid, São Paulo and Los Angeles will discuss the experience of platform workers in different geographies of the pandemic. We will explore how labor is organizing to respond to the technological transformation of capitalism at a time of a global, political and economic crisis.
For more information, CLICK HERE.
The webinar will be broadcasted live on the UCLA Labor Studies Facebook Page.

Virtual Hangout: Mindfulness & Self-Care
2020-12-04 14:00 - 14:50 | Online
We believe that community finds a way to persist despite physical distances – so join us for our Labor Studies Zoom Hangouts! Ask faculty & staff questions, connect with peers, or just hang out in our informal and casual Zoom sessions!
Open to NEW and CURRENT students!
Theme: Join our Labor Studies community as we set mindful intentions for the rest of the quarter and learn techniques that can be used beyond virtual spaces! This student-led virtual hangout will be a space that is centered around well-being, relief, and mutual care.
Register HERE.

UCLA Labor Center Virtual Celebration
2020-11-19 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
As much as we would like to celebrate together, to ensure the safety of our guests, we will be hosting a virtual celebration. During this critical year, the work of the Labor Center—to promote worker rights, recruit a new generation of young leaders into the labor movement, and support labor and community alliances—is more important than ever.
Please join us on Facebook Live, Thursday, November 19, 7–8 pm PST. The event is free and open to all. Please register to join us.
This year we are proud to honor:
Ron Herrera, President, LA County Federation of Labor – Working-Class Hero Award
Gerry Hudson, Secretary-Treasurer, SEIU – Voice of the People Award
Linda Delp, UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program – Change Maker Award
Hilda Solis, Los Angeles County Supervisor and former US Secretary of Labor – Lifetime Achievement Award
While our celebration is free of charge, we appreciate your support for the UCLA Labor Center. Please visit our website for sponsorship opportunities and ways to support the Labor Center!

Register HERE.

2020 Workers and Learners Summit
2020-11-18 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
Are you working while you’re in school? You’re not alone. Over half of undergraduate students in Los Angeles County are also employed. The UCLA Labor Center, UCLA Labor Studies, and USAC at UCLA are excited to bring our UCLA community of workers and learners together through a new virtual meeting space. Come, and participate in this opportunity to be unmuted and share your experiences with your fellow workers and learners, and faculty. Gain access to resources that are available to you and your family. Learn about your rights as a worker and learner. Engage with our ongoing workers and learners research project, and have fun with your peers playing interactive games and participating in stress-relieving exercises in community connectivity.

Register HERE.

Virtual Hangout: Game Night & Buddy System Reveal
2020-10-28 17:00 - 17:50 | Online
We believe that community finds a way to persist despite physical distances – so join us for our Labor Studies Zoom Hangouts! Ask faculty & staff questions, connect with peers, or just hang out in our informal and casual Zoom sessions!
Open to NEW and CURRENT students!
Theme: Bring some competitive spirit for our game night and be prepared to meet your Labor Studies buddy! *You do not have to be part of the buddy system to attend the event.*
Register HERE.

“Waging Change” Film Screening
2020-10-15 16:00 - 18:00 | Online
Join UCLA Labor Studies for a Special Online Screening of @WAGINGCHANGE and Live Q&A Session!
Waging Change shines a spotlight on the challenges faced by restaurant workers trying to feed themselves and their families off tips by intertwining stories of individuals, such as Nataki Rhodes of Chicago, Andrea Velasquez of Detroit and Wardell Harvey of New Orleans with the growing movement to end the tipped minimum wage. Featuring Saru Jayaraman, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the film reveals an American workers’ struggle hidden in plain sight– the effort to end the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 for restaurant servers and bartenders and the #MeToo movement’s efforts to end sexual harassment. Directed by Peabody award winner, Abby Ginzberg, Waging Change helps all consumers see the important role they have to play in ending this two-tiered wage system. View Trailer HERE.
Register HERE.

Labor Studies Welcome
2020-09-29 10:00 - 12:00 | Online
Labor Studies Information Session + Student Mixer. Learn about the Labor Studies Major & Minor and meet your faculty, staff, alumni, and fellow students!
Register HERE.

Virtual Hangout with Saul Sarabia
2020-08-28 14:00 - 15:00 | Online
We believe that community finds a way to persist despite physical distances – so join us for our Labor Studies Zoom Hangouts! Ask faculty & staff questions, connect with peers, or just hang out in our informal and casual Zoom sessions!
Open to NEW and CURRENT students!
Theme: Join the Labor Studies Team and IRLE researcher/criminal justice reformer Saul Sarabia for a conversation about Student Activism!

Book Talk with Inés Durán Matute
2020-03-03 13:00 - 15:00 | Chicano Studies Research Center Library, 144 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, 90095-1544, United States
IRLE Colloquia Series presents: In conversation with Inés Durán Matute on their new book, Indigenous Peoples and the Geographies of Power. Mezcala’s narratives of Neoliberal Governance.
Tracing key trends of the global-regional-local interface of power, Inés Durán Matute through the case of the indigenous community of Mezcala (Mexico) demonstrates how global political economic processes shape the lives, spaces, projects and identities of the most remote communities. Throughout the book, in-depth interviews, participant observations and text collection, offer the reader insight into the functioning of neoliberal governance, how it is sustained in networks of power and rhetorics deployed, and how it is experienced. People, as passively and actively participate in its courses of action, are being enmeshed in these geographies of power seeking out survival strategies, but also constructing autonomous projects that challenge such forms of governance.
This book, by bringing together the experience of a geopolitical locality and the literature from the Latin American Global South into the discussions within the Global Northern academia, offers an original and timely transdisciplinary approach that challenges the interpretations of power and development while also prioritizing and respecting the local production of knowledge.

Inés Durán Matute is a Postdoctoral Fulbright Scholar within the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research interests lie at the intersection of ethnicity, social movements, colonialism, racism and inequalities, migration, development, and democracy. Since 2008, Ines has been an active supporter of the Coca indigenous community of Mezcala (Mexico) in defense of their territory and the national struggle of indigenous peoples. Currently, she is investigating why and how activists and migrants in California engage with indigenous peoples’ struggles in Mexico.
Cosponsored by: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
RSVP
The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.

Mapping Corporate Power: Activist-Researchers and Labor Coalitions in the 1970's U.S
2020-02-20 15:30 - 16:45
IRLE Colloquia Series presents:
In Conversation with Grace Davie, Mapping Corporate Power: Activist-Researchers and Labor Coalitions in the 1970’s U.S.
When working people in the U.S. sought union representation in the 1970s they faced fierce resistance from businesses willing to increase their use of bare-knuckle anti-union tactics. In response, and in the context of rising conservatism, global economic restructuring, financialization, and weak labor law enforcement, a handful of U.S. trade unions began experimenting. They turned to labor-community coalitions that tried to gain leverage over corporations using power structure analysis, financial research, media strategies, and shareholder activism.
Gracie Davie is Associate Professor of History at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY). Her first book was Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: A Social History of Human Science, 1855-2005 (Cambridge UP, 2015). Her current book project is called “Webs of Power: Labor Union Corporate Campaigns in the United States, 1960-2015.”
RSVP
The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.

Book Talk with Aarti Namdev Shahani
2020-01-27 14:00 - 16:00 | Haines Hall 144, 375 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
IRLE Colloquia Series presents: In Conversation with Aarti Namdev Shahani about their new book, Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares.
The American political discourse is constantly calibrating its interpretation of what it means to be American. Coming from an undocumented family herself, writer Aarti Shahani has spent her life navigating the shifting tides of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. Her book Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares documents Shahani and her father’s disparate versions of the immigrant experience, coexisting as the scholarship kid at one of Manhattan’s most elite prep schools and the shopkeeper who mistakenly sells watches and calculators to the notorious Cali Cartel.
In addition to being an author, Shahani is an award-winning correspondent for NPR in Silicon Valley, covering the largest companies on Earth. Shahani remains a resounding voice advocating on behalf of our country’s immigrant community. IRLE hosts Aarti Shahani to address a question that plagues immigrants and natives alike: Who really belongs in America?
Cosponsored by: UCLA Asian American Studies Center, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
RSVP
The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.

Book Talk with Steven Greenhouse
2019-10-14 14:00 - 16:00 | Rolfe Hall 1200
“From the longtime New York Times labor correspondent, an in-depth look at working men and women in America, the challenges they face, and how they can be re-empowered. In an era when corporate profits have soared while wages have flatlined, millions of Americans are searching for ways to improve their lives, and they’re often turning to labor unions and worker action, whether #RedforEd teachers’ strikes or the Fight for $15. Wage stagnation, low-wage work, and blighted blue-collar communities have become an all-too-common part of modern-day America, and behind these trends is a little-discussed problem: the decades-long decline in worker power.Steven Greenhouse sees this decline reflected in some of the most pressing problems facing our nation today, including income inequality, declining social mobility, the gender pay gap, and the concentration of political power in the hands of the wealthy. He rebuts the often-stated view that labor unions are outmoded–or even harmful–by recounting some of labor’s victories, and the efforts of several of today’s most innovative and successful worker groups.”
Cosponsored by: UCLA Labor Center
RSVP Here

Book Talk with Laura Velasco
2019-05-22 12:00 - 13:30 | Haines Hall 144, 375 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
IRLE Colloquia Series presents:

In conversation with Laura Velasco about her new book: Migración, trabajo y asentamiento en enclaves globales. Indígenas en Baja California Sur

Este libro analiza las condiciones de vida de trabajadores inmigrantes en territorios que constituyen enclaves globales, tanto agrícolas como turísticos de élite en el estado mexicano de Baja California. Las investigaciones que sustentan el libro muestran procesos comunes de segmentación, segregación y etnización asociadas a condiciones precarias de trabajo y residencia para los inmigrantes, aún con las arduas estrategias de reproducción social y cultural de los trabajadores y sus familias. La situación resultante conlleva a reflexionar sobre la sustentabilidad social de estos modernos enclaves globalizados, así como respecto al papel de la intervención gubernamental para aminorar sus efectos en la producción y reproducción de desigualdades étnicas y sociales.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/LauraVelasco.

Laura Velasco Ortiz: socióloga mexicana. Doctora en Ciencias Sociales con especialidad en Sociología. Es investigadora del Departamento de Estudios Culturales de El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, desde 1991. Especialista en los temas de migración, etnicidad y género, e identidades culturales.
Entre sus publicaciones destacan los libros: en coautoría. De jornaleros a colonos: residencia, trabajo e identidad en el Valle de San Quintín. El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (2014). con Cristian Zlolniski y Marie-Laure Coubès. Métodos cualitativos y su aplicación empírica. Por los caminos de la investigación sobre migración internacional, coord. Con Marina Ariza, El Colef-UNAM, (2012); Mexican Voices of the Border Region, en coautoría con Oscar Contreras, Temple University Press, 2011; Migración, fronteras e identidades étnicas transnacionales, El Colef, 2008; Mixtec transnational Identity, University of Arizona Press, 2005.

The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.

The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.

Cosponsored by:

UCLA Center for Mexican Studies

In Conversation with Henry Reichman: Academic Capitalism and the Future of Academic Freedom
2019-05-20 12:00 - 13:30 | UCLA Bunche Hall 6275
IRLE Colloquia Series presents:

In conversation with Henry Reichman: Academic Capitalism and the Future of Academic Freedom.

In the wake of the 2016 election, challenges to academic freedom have intensified, higher education has become a target of attacks by conservatives, and issues of free speech on campus have grown increasingly controversial. In his recently published book, The Future of Academic Freedom, Henry Reichman explores the theory, history, and contemporary practice of academic freedom. He pays attention to such varied concerns as the meddling of politicians and corporate trustees in curriculum and university governance, the role of online education, the impact of social media, the rights of student protesters and outside speakers, the relationship between collective bargaining and academic freedom, and the influence on research and teaching of ideologically motivated donors. In this talk Reichman will summarize some of his major conclusions, focusing in particular on the threat to academic freedom posed by what some have labeled “academic capitalism.”

Henry Reichman is Professor Emeritus of History at California State University, East Bay; Chair of the American Association of University Professors Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure; and Chair of the AAUP Foundation. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, was published in April by the Johns Hopkins University Press. He earned the Ph.D in History at UC Berkeley.

Facebook: http://bit.ly/AcademicCapitalism

The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.

The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.

Book Talk with Abigail L. Andrews
2019-05-13 15:00 - 16:30 | UCLA Bunche Hall 6275
IRLE Colloquia Series presents:

In conversation with Abigail L. Andrews about her new book: Undocumented Politics: Place, Gender, and the Pathways of Mexican Migrants

For twenty-one months, Abigail Andrews lived with two groups of migrants and their families in the mountains of Mexico and in the barrios of Southern California. Her nuanced comparison reveals how local laws and power dynamics shape migrants’ agency. Andrews also exposes how arbitrary policing abets gendered violence. Yet she insists that the process does not begin or end in the United States. Rather, migrants interpret their destinations in light of the hometowns they leave behind. Their counterparts in Mexico must also come to grips with migrant globalization. And on both sides of the border, men and women transform patriarchy through their battles to belong. Ambitious and intimate, Undocumented Politics reveals how the excluded find space for political voice.

Abigail Andrews is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies at the University of California-San Diego. Her research focuses on gender, migration, state power, and grassroots agency. She is particularly interested in the struggles of marginalized groups in Mexico and the United States, including indigenous peasants, deportees, and undocumented immigrants. She also co-direct the Mexican Migration Field Research Program at UCSD. Dr. Andrews has also studied power dynamics within transnational social movements and the role of gender in global politics. In collaboration with students at UCSD, she is currently conducting field research about the political impacts of forced displacement, with a focus on deportation and Central American transit through Mexico.
For more information, visit http://bit.ly/AbigailAndrews.

The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multidisciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.

The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.

Cosponsored by:
UCLA Center for Mexican Studies

The Politics of Survival: Racial Geographies of Capitalism in Post-Disaster Puerto Rico
2019-04-24 13:00 - 14:30 | Haines Hall 144, 375 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
IRLE Colloquia Series presents:

Fernando Tormos-Aponte and his talk on”The Politics of Survival: Racial Geographies of Capitalism in Post-Disaster Puerto Rico.”

On September 20th, 2017, Hurricane María made landfall on Puerto Rico. With sustained winds of 250km per hour, the storm accomplished the unthinkable: making the economic outlook of Puerto Rico for the foreseeable future look even worse than it had the day before. Tormos argues that the hurricane exacerbated an ongoing fiscal and humanitarian crisis while revealing deep-rooted inequalities and federal and local government neglect of marginalized communities. He will address how US-Puerto Rico economic and political relations have set the stage for the crisis and how social movements are organizing to respond.

Visit us on Facebook: http://bit.ly/FernandoTormosAponte
Fernando Tormos-Aponte is a postdoctoral fellow with the Scholars Strategy Network and a research fellow of the Southern Methodist University Latino Center. His research focuses on how social movements push governments and corporations to address issues of inequality. This summer he will be a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge where he will work on his new book with José Ciro Martínez on the politics of survival and disaster relief in Puerto Rico in the wake of hurricane María.

The 2019-2020 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) colloquia series aims to convene faculty, students, and special guests to discuss multi-disciplinary research and policy issues impacting workers and their families today.
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) houses the Labor Studies academic program and three units – UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Roundtable, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program. IRLE forms wide-ranging research agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.
