IRLE Publications

UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment publications can also be found at eScholarship® which provides scholarly publishing and repository services that enable departments, research units, publishing programs, and individual scholars associated with the University of California to have direct control over the creation and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship. Learn more here.



The stories of Organizing Prosperity are an examination of the role that unionism has played in lifting up workers, communities, and even businesses themselves in a dozen American occupations and industries.

The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market

Annette Bernhardt, Heather Boushey, Laura Dresser and Chris Tilly

September 12, 2008

Economic Justice, Labor and Occupational Safety, Publications, Working Class History, Book/Edited Volume

This book examines a range of gloves-off practices, the workers who are affected by them, and strategies for enforcing workplace standards.

Underground Undergrads provides a summary of the history of legislation impacting undocumented students in higher education along with a resource guide of organizations that advocate for student rights.

This book is a memoir by a major figure in U.S. industrial relations and labor law, Benjamin Aaron, and provides an engaging account of half a century of U.S. labor relations history.

A new book of interviews and photos from Asian Pacific American labor organizers who are helping to change the US Labor Movement.

This research investigates why and how US unions use in-depth, strategic research to build power, and why and how it works.

The Future of Work: From Dystopia to Utopia?

Peter Evans, Chris Tilly

November 15, 2023

Publications, The Future of Work, Paper

This report considers the top 200 theatrical film releases in 2014 and 1,146 broadcast, cable and digital platform television shows from the 2013-14 season in order to document the degree to which women and minorities are present in front of and behind the camera.

Media Contact

Dr. Ana-Christina Ramón, Director of Research and Civic Engagement for the Division of Social Sciences, at acramon@ss.ucla.edu

Reconnecting to Work: Policies to Mitigate Long-Term Unemployment and Its Consequences

Lauren D. Appelbaum (IRLE Research Affiliate)

January 1, 2012

Economic Justice, Publications, Book/Edited Volume

The book presents research that examines the psychological as well as economic consequences of experiencing a prolonged spell of joblessness and discusses policies to increase job creation and to get the long-term unemployed back into jobs.