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

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

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

State of the Unions Part I: California Labor in 2025 Webinar
2026-09-09 12:00 - 13:30 | Online – Zoom
In 2025, the Trump administration unleashed a series of anti-labor and anti-immigrant policies that dramatically impacted working families in the U.S. and in California. Coming soon from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE), the “State of the Unions” report tracks how workers and unions responded to this critical moment.
The UCLA IRLE invites you to join labor experts and organizers for a timely panel discussion on how workers and unions fought back against threats to organizing rights at the NLRB in 2025 and continued to grow their ranks.
Date: September 9, 12 – 1:30 pm PST
Location: Zoom
RSVP HERE!
This is the first installment of a series of webinars on the “State of the Unions.” Stay tuned for more details on Part II.
Memo Durgin: Guillermo “Memo” Durgin is the Organizing Director for the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO. Prior to joining the Federation, Memo worked as a union organizer for twenty-five years with multiple unions, representing teachers, state workers and immigrant service workers. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Chicano Studies from the University of California Davis, and completed a master’s program in Ethnic Studies at California State University Sacramento.
David Rosenfeld: David Rosenfeld has been practicing union-side labor law since his graduation from UC Berkeley School of Law in 1973, where he also taught labor law courses for many years. He has argued approximately 250 cases before federal and state courts of appeal, the United States Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court and the National Labor Relations Board. Rosenfeld is an author of preeminent reference guides for workers and unions, including “California Workers’ Rights,” “Hey, the Boss Called Just Called Me Into the Office,” published by UC Berkeley and “The Campaign Guide: Organizing and Contract Enforcement in the Construction Industry,” published by the North America’s Building Trades Unions.
Amber Gonzalez: Amber Gonzalez is a worker organizer with Starbucks Workers United. Gonzalez has worked at Starbucks for 4 years in Riverside, CA, where she and her coworkers won a union election in summer 2025, then joined a months-long national strike protesting Starbucks’ unfair labor practices. She is currently completing her undergrad in political science at UC Irvine.
Justin McBride: Justin McBride is a project director at the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) and a main author of the “State of the Unions: California Labor in 2025” report. McBride is a labor studies scholar who writes about public finance and the intersections between public policy and worker organizing. He received his PhD in Urban Planning from the UCLA Department of Urban Planning and has worked for over 15 years as a labor organizer.

State of the Unions Part II: The Fight for a First Union Contract
2026-09-23 12:00 - 13:30 | Online – Zoom
Successful drives to form new unions may generate buzz and media attention, but the most meaningful change happens after that first battle is won—in employer negotiations. For many workers, forming a union is only the beginning of a longer battle to improve work standards and conditions.
Just 1 in 2 bargaining units formed in California in 2024 had achieved a union contract by Spring 2026, according to a new study from a team of researchers at UC Labor Centers. The study is included in the annual “State of the Unions” report from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE).
The UCLA IRLE and UCLA Labor Center invite you to join labor experts and organizers for an illuminating panel discussion on workers’ prolonged fights to secure a first union contract.
Date: September 23, 12 – 1:30 pm PST
Location: Zoom
RSVP HERE!
This is Part II of a series of webinars on the “State of the Unions.” Learn more here.

Meeting the Moment, Building the Movement, Part 1– Proposition 187: Labor’s Fight for Immigrant Rights
2026-10-09 10:00 - 11:30 | Online – Zoom
Date and Time: October 9, 2026, 10-11:30 PDT
Location: Virtual
RSVP
Against the backdrop of unemployment and civil unrest in the early 1990s, California Republicans offered voters a simple, brutal solution: criminalize undocumented immigrants. Proposition 187, a statewide voter initiative, threatened to exclude immigrants from all public services and to enlist teachers, neighbors and faith leaders into the machinery of deportation. Labor unions were initially unsure how to respond, but when unions joined the fight against Proposition 187, they changed the direction of California politics.
In this virtual panel event, three veterans of the campaign to stop Proposition 187 will discuss how the moment forged coalitions between immigrant rights and labor organizers that set the stage for a historic shift in organized labor’s policy on undocumented workers. Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez, Former Regional Manager and International Vice President of Workers United, Dave Sickler, former Western Regional Director of AFL-CIO, and Joel Ochoa, labor and community organizer, will share their expertise.
Speakers
Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez: Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez began working as a union organizer with the ILGWU (International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union) in 1976. Largely recognized as the first union to embrace immigrant workers, the ILGWU merged with ACTWU in the 1980s to form UNITE! Ramirez-Vazquez became the first Latin American Immigrant to be International Vice President of UNITE! and Regional Manager of the Western States Regional Joint Board. Ramirez-Vazquez was instrumental in mobilizing her union to become one of the driving forces behind the fight against Prop 187. Recognizing the importance of broad commitment to the struggle, also coordinated the No On Proposition 187 outreach effort that organized a broad swath of communities and immigrant-advocacy organizations into a unified campaign. Ramirez-Vazquez has dedicated her life to organizing garment workers, warehouse workers and industrial laundry workers to secure better working conditions and dignity in the workplace. Now retired, Ramirez-Vazquez is still active with Workers United, working to improve medical benefits for the members of the union.
David Sickler: David Sickler, retired Western Regional Director of the AFL-CIO, spearheaded the effort to get local and national labor leaders to recognize the importance of defending immigrant workers. Following passage of the Immigration Reform Act in 1988, he established the Labor Immigrant Assistance Project and the AFL-CIO California Immigrant Workers’ Association. Sickler was a key figure in arguing for labor participation in the mass march against Proposition 187 on October 16, 1994. In his long career, Sickler also served as the senior labor advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as Commissioner of Public Works and as Executive Director of Employment Relations at the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Beginning in 2009, Sickler was Southern Regional Director of The California State Building and Construction Trades Council. Sickler also served as Chair of the UCLA Center for Labor and Research advisory committee.
Joel Ochoa: Joel Ochoa is a retired labor and community organizer. He came to the United States from Mexico in 1973, a political refugee forced from his country because of the campaign of massacres, violent assaults and arrests waged by the administration of then-president Luis Echeverría against participants in the student protest movement. On the community level in the U.S., Ochoa worked for the pioneering labor and community organization, CASA, organizing immigrant workers and their families to fight for unconditional amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. In the early 90’s he worked closely with the workers during the American Racing Equipment and the Drywall fights for union recognition in the LA Metro area. Those campaigns helped bring about change in the labor movement in Southern California, making it more inclusive and militant. Joining forces with the AFL-CIO’s California Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA), Ochoa worked tirelessly in 1994 to enlist labor unions and community organizations into the resistance against Prop 187. From 1997 to 2014 he was an International Representative for the International Association of Machinists.
Moderator
Gaspar Rivera-Salgado: Gaspar Rivera-Salgado is currently project director at UCLA Labor Center and labor studies lecturer at 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 US and immigration issues. Among his publications include the volume (with J. Fox) Indigenous Mexican Migration in the United States (UCSD 2005); and the recently published volume (with E. Telles, and M. Sawyer) Just Neighbors: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States (Russell Sage, 2011). He received his doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Meeting the Moment, Building the Movement, Part 2– Labor Strategies to Defend Immigrant Worker Rights Today
2026-10-16 10:00 - 23:30 | Online – Zoom
Date and Time: October 16, 2026, 10-11:30 PDT
Location: Virtual
RSVP
Part 2 of the “Meeting the Moment” series brings together three leaders at the forefront of labor and community responses to the current militarized federal immigration in cities across the U.S. Facing the largest deportation campaign since the 1950s, labor unions and their members, alongside allies in the immigrant rights movement, are taking creative, nonviolent action to defend communities.
The virtual panel will welcome David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW), Bernie Burnham, President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, and Kurt Petersen, Vice President of UNITE HERE Local 11, to share their insights as leaders of the movement.
Speakers
David Huerta, President, SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW): David Huerta is a veteran labor organizer and the president of SEIU California and SEIU–United Service Workers West, representing hundreds of thousands of janitors, security officers and service workers. He began his career in the 1990s as an organizer with Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles and has been recognized for his leadership in immigrant integration and worker empowerment. In June 2025, while serving as a peaceful community observer during an ICE raid in downtown Los Angeles, Huerta was injured and arrested on felony charges of conspiring to impede a federal officer. After protests by union members, civil rights groups and Democratic leaders, he was released three days later after posting a $50,000 bond. This moment cemented his reputation as a steadfast advocate for labor and immigrant rights, and as a symbol of resistance to federal overreach.
Bernie Burnham, President, MN AFL-CIO:Bernie Burnham became President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO in 2021 in a history-making election. As a Pacific-Islander, she is the first person of color to head the state’s labor federation. During Operation Metro Surge, she led Minnesota’s labor movement in coalition with community and religious organizations in the fight against ICE’s brutal assault on immigrant rights, worker rights, and the deaths of innocent Minnesotans. The struggle is ongoing as labor stands up to the administration’s continued weaponization of the federal government to intimidate unions, communities, and anyone who peacefully opposes its radical authoritarian agenda.
Kurt Petersen, Co-president, UNITE HERE Local 11: Kurt Petersen is a Co-President of UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents 35,000 hotel and food service workers in Southern California and Arizona. Petersen studied Theology/Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and attended Yale Law School. He went on to win the first union contract for farm workers in Washington State history at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery with the United Farm Workers. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1995, he has organized more than 25,000 workers into UNITE HERE. Most recently, Petersen led the largest hotel strike in the nation’s history, and won a life-changing contract with 50% wage increases, including groundbreaking language that gave workers the right to strike if the activity of ICE or Border Control threatened worker safety during the 2026 World Cup. Local 11’s hotel and stadium contracts will expire in January 2028, months before the Olympics. Petersen, along with his Co-Presidents Ada Briceno and Susan Minato, was recently named in the Los Angeles Times 2024 LA Influential list.
Moderator
Gaspar Rivera-Salgado: Gaspar Rivera-Salgado is currently project director at UCLA Labor Center and labor studies lecturer at 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 US and immigration issues. Among his publications include the volume (with J. Fox) Indigenous Mexican Migration in the United States (UCSD 2005); and the recently published volume (with E. Telles, and M. Sawyer) Just Neighbors: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States (Russell Sage, 2011). He received his doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

UCLA Coding Bootcamp for Union Research
2027-06-01 - 2027-06-30
The UCLA Strategic Research Lab will hold a five-day intensive training in using the power of Python coding to simplify tasks for union research. The camp will be held in the summer of 2027, and applications will open in late February.
The Coding Bootcamp is an intense and challenging experience! Come ready to jump feet first into a weeklong journey towards simplifying your work, discovering new data sources, and automating your most routine research tasks!
Key Training Topics:

Python fundamentals
Dynamically moving and combining multiple files
Fuzzy matching different data sets
Use APIs to bulk download data, such as open government data
Scraping websites to collect data, such as:

property listings,
company information,
government data,
pdfs, and
data sets that cannot be downloaded directly

Cleaning, merging, and deduplicating data such as worker lists, property records, or company information
Using text patterns to extract data

Who should apply
This course is designed for union or movement researchers that often encounter large amounts of data in the course of their work. The skills taught in this course will allow students to collect, process, and analyze data more efficiently and accurately.
This course does not cover topics such as databases (i.e. SQL), advanced data analysis (i.e. statistics and data modeling), machine learning, or extracting text from PDFs–these are advanced topics that cannot be covered in the time we have, but students will have a solid Python foundation and can work on self-teaching these topics after the course.
Prior coding experience is not required to attend this course. However, all accepted students must participate in a short, self-paced python pre-course. We will also cover Python fundamentals together in class.

Advice From the 2025 Coding Bootcamp Cohort:
“You should definitely attend this program if you’re thinking about it! This program really helps make coding feel so much more accessible no matter how much experience you have coming in. I have learned so many different ways to use coding to make my work so much more efficient and comprehensive.”
“It is like drinking out of a firehouse. That’s just the way this sort of thing works. Keeping a good attitude and accepting that you will be challenged is extremely crucial to being successful.”
“I have learned so much and feel so much more capable in the work I do.”

Event Details:

Dates: TBA – Summer 2027
Time: Monday-Friday, 8am-6pm
Location: UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center, Los Angeles
Cost: $850 (includes training materials & refreshments)
Meals: Not included, but local dining options are available

The Instructor: Mellissa Chang

Mellissa Chang (she/hers) is freelance campaign researcher and data engineer. She conducts data-informed campaign research and builds data tools for labor unions and non-profits. Prior to this, she was a research coordinator at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, where she tracked and analyzed eviction data and acquisitions to support tenant organizing campaigns around the country. During the pandemic, she closely tracked covid relief spending, identifying parent recipients and matching recipients to a database of federal regulatory violations, earning her the DC Femme Tech Award in 2021. Before entering the non-profit sphere, she worked as an airports campaign researcher at 32BJ. Mellissa holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. In her spare time, she builds automated mass transit systems in Minecraft.

Application details
This application includes a short diagnostic test. The results of this test are only used to help design the course and are NOT factored into your application assessment.
This course is rigorous and fast-paced. By applying to this course, you pledge to remain focused and engaged, and to ask for help when needed.

Email srl@irle.ucla.edu for more information or if you have any questions.

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