IRLE Publications

Young Workers in California: A Snapshot builds from a series of UCLA Labor Center studies that capture the experiences of young people in the workplace. Contrary to popular narratives about youth working to earn pocket money for leisure items, these studies found that the vast majority in Los Angeles County work to support their families, pay for school, and cover basic needs. They face erratic scheduling practices that make it difficult to balance work with school, family, and other individual needs. Additionally, they encounter serious work issues including wage theft, harassment, and a lack of a career ladder. This report broadens the scope of our previous research by analyzing the state of young workers throughout California, with a focus on the industries in which they are concentrated: retail, food services, health care, social assistance, education, administrative and office work, the sciences, and technology.

Media Contact

Emily Jo Wharry, emilyjowharry@g.ucla.edu

While few Californians know what PAGA is, the heroic labor law enacted in 2003 is workers’ best chance to defend their labor rights including being paid minimum wage and overtime compensation, using earned sick leave, taking rest and meal breaks, and gender pay parity. The law allows an individual worker to file a civil lawsuit in the name of the state and all their coworkers, to recover penalties for violations of the Labor Code. Although the model of empowering whistleblowers is widely used to fight fraud against the government, PAGA is a one-of-kind law in the country in terms of enforcing workplace protections.Corporate interests have tried to weaken and even repeal PAGA by making claims not grounded in facts. The real story is that major companies engage in real wrongdoing.

Media Contact

Emily Jo Wharry, emilyjowharry@g.ucla.edu

This report is the seventh in a series of annual studies produced by UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) to explore relationships between diversity and the bottom line in the Hollywood entertainment industry. The Division of Social Sciences’s Hollywood Advancement Project, from which this report series stems, has three primary goals: 1) to generate comprehensive research analyses of the inclusion of diverse groups in film and television, including lead roles, writing, directing, producing, and talent representation; 2) to identify and disseminate best practices for increasing the pipeline of underrepresented groups into the Hollywood entertainment industry; and 3) to consider the broader implications of diverse industry access and media images for society as a whole

Media Contact

Barbra Ramos, bramos@stratcomm.ucla.edu; Willa Needham, willaneedham@ucla.edu

Examined through the lens of both the Declaration of Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution, this study encourages discussion surrounding ensuring quality education and teacher labor protections as human rights in the hopes of bringing justice and change to classrooms.

Work, Pay, or Go to Jail: Court-Ordered Community Service in Los Angeles is the first study to analyze a large-scale system of court-ordered community service in the contemporary United States. It finds that court-ordered community service functions as a system of unregulated and coercive labor, which worsens the effects of criminal justice debt and displaces paid jobs.

Media Contact

Emily Jo Wharry, emilyjowharry@g.ucla.edu

The Parent Worker Project empowers low-wage parent workers in Los Angeles to advocate for their children’s education. Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, this program brings together workers, community organizations, schools, and policy stakeholders to promote the academic success of all students. The project’s first iteration successfully trained janitor parents, and the current initiative engages garment and domestic workers and their children in partnership with worker-led organizations: the Garment Worker Center(GWC) and IDEPSCA (Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California). While parents participate in a variety of adult education workshops, their children receive tutoring from UCLA students in the Learning Together! program, which was conceived, developed and put into practice by the UCLA Labor Center with tutor scholarships from the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies, the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, and the Parent Alliance.

Media Contact

Emily Jo Wharry, emilyjowharry@g.ucla.edu

This book captures some of Sickler’s historic campaign victories, from his leadership of the national Coors Boycott to unprecedented organizing drives with immigrant workers, often in direct challenge to the leadership of US labor.

This is the sixth in a series of annual reports to examine relationships between diversity and the bottom line in the Hollywood entertainment industry. It considers the top 200 theatrical film releases in 2017 and 1,316 broadcast, cable and digital platform television shows from the 2016-17 season in order to document the degree to which women and people of color are present in front of and behind the camera. It discusses any patterns between these findings and box office receipts and audience ratings.

Media Contact

Barbra Ramos, bramos@stratcomm.ucla.edu; Willa Needham, willaneedham@ucla.edu

Drawing on the case of restaurant workers in Los Angeles, this study analyzes tip work, the bundle of social relations and labor experiences framed by tips in commercial settings.

This report examines what universities can do to promote the educational equity of undocumented students and focuses on the University of California system, nine undergraduate educational institutions that have supportive institutional policies.