IRLE Year at a Glance 2022/2023 ANNUAL REPORT

The Labor Movement is undergoing a remarkable resurgence, with union favorability ratings reaching their highest point since the 1960s and unions achieving major organizing victories across various industries. However, as we emerge from the pandemic, workers throughout California and the nation continue to face significant challenges, from widening economic inequality and persistent racial and gender wage gaps, to limited access to healthcare and the rapid proliferation of intrusive workplace technologies.

At this pivotal juncture, IRLE stands poised to meet the moment. Our longstanding commitment to research, teaching, and public service has been fortified by an extraordinary $13 million allocation for labor research and education in the California budget, a testament to the vital role our researchers play in advancing labor policy. This substantial investment has not only supported the establishment of six new labor centers across the UC system, but has empowered us to deepen and broaden our initiatives here at Berkeley.

Over the past year, our dedicated team of IRLE researchers and programming staff has been diligently engaged in publishing timely research, providing technical assistance to policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels, and nurturing the development of emerging labor scholars and practitioners through our training programs.

Our groundbreaking research has played a pivotal role in shaping public discourse and policymaking on critical matters affecting the well-being of California's working families. Last year, we released influential reports on critical issues including minimum wage, the childcare crisis, criminal justice reform, worker technology rights, and the transition to a clean energy economy. Our researchers are frequently cited in both state and national media, sought after to offer expert opinions on emerging policy proposals, and called upon to provide valuable technical assistance to policymakers and government agencies.

At the same time, we have made significant strides in expanding our student engagement and mentorship programs. Thanks to the new state funding, we have been able to deepen our commitment to training the next generation of labor scholars who reflect the diversity of California. Noteworthy initiatives include the expansion of the popular Labor Summer program to all nine UC campuses, and the provision of first paid research opportunities for dozens of students through our Social Sciences Research Pathways mentorship program.

Discover more about our ongoing work to bridge the gap between world-class research and effective policy implementation in order to to improve the lives of workers, strengthen communities, and build a more equitable society.

Student Programs

IRLE's student research and experiential learning programs continue to expand to meet growing demand across campus and the UC system. New funding provided in the state budget has allowed us to extend undergraduate labor education across the UC system through new course offerings, student internships, and mentorship programs.

Student Research Funding By the Numbers

IRLE's support has been instrumental in advancing my research on the traffic-related environmental and occupational exposures of gig food-delivery motorcyclists in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The Graduate Research Award has enabled me to utilize low-cost, wearable sensing technology to analyze how heat interacts with incentive structures to influence their driving behavior. This support has been pivotal in shaping my research on this emerging labor well-being issue.

— 2022-2023 graduate research awardee Cheng-Kai Hsu

Research Mentorship

IRLE's innovative research development program Social Sciences Research Pathways (SSRP) matched 69 undergraduate mentees with 34 graduate student-led research projects last year. The popular program connects undergraduates seeking a first formal research experience with graduate student mentors pursuing doctoral-level research projects. IRLE funds stipends for mentors and mentees, who work together throughout the academic year.

Two SSRP teams presented their research at academic conferences this year. Congratulations to grad student mentor Emily Ruppel and her mentees Alexandra Ward, Christian Burke, and Genevieve Bellavance, who received the ASA's second place award for student papers on disability for their submission on the co-construction of gender and autism in scientific discourse.

The program embodies IRLE's commitment to broadening the pipeline of future labor scholars by providing meaningful, hands-on social sciences research experience t0 students from all backgrounds.

The mentorship that our graduate students offer the undergraduates really enables professional and personal development. Most importantly, these mentorship relationships help build social capital that is integral to academic and career success but is so often left in the background. Working alongside graduate students, undergraduates often find a sense of relatability and familiarity, and can ask the questions they might be nervous or hesitant to pose to faculty.

— Meghna Mukherjee

In 2020, sociology Ph.D. candidate Meghna Mukherjee was instrumental in launching SSRP as an initiative to more equitably empower undergraduate students with research skills and mentorship while also supporting the research needs of our graduate students. She recently spoke with IRLE about the origins and purpose of the program. Read the full interview.

Coming into Cal as a transfer I thought I would have no access to research opportunities, let alone opportunities that came with a stipend. I have grown so much for the work I've been able to do in this program.

— SSRP undergraduate mentee

Photo: Sociology grad student mentor Emily Ruppel and her mentees Alexandra Ward, Christian Burke, and Genevieve Bellavance at the American Sociological Association conference.

Experiential Learning

I really liked how this course not only focused on theoretical concepts pertaining to labor policy and action, but also helped facilitate the application of such knowledge and skills through the use of project-based research.

— Undergraduate student in Labor Research and Policy, Spring 2023

The Labor Center and California Policy Lab continue to offer a range of experiential learning opportunities:

  • The Labor Center's Labor Summer and Solidarity Spring programs train and match students interested in the labor movement with unions and worker organizations.
  • Labor Studies courses offered by the Labor Center's Anibel Ferus-Comelo at the Goldman School, pair students with partner organizations for semester-long, hands-on research projects.
  • The California Policy Lab's Undergraduate Summer Institute supports UC undergrads in developing and deepening their data and policy analysis skill sets while working on some of the most pressing issues facing Californians.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING SPOTLIGHT

Labor Summer

Labor Summer participants are prepared to help workers organize to build power to win strong labor standards and build an economy that works for all.

— Brenda Muñoz, Labor Center co-chair

It was an exciting summer for 134 undergraduate and graduate students who completed hands-on training with unions and worker centers throughout the state in a historic UC-wide Labor Summer internship program. Labor Summer, which launched at the UC Berkeley Labor Center more than 20 years ago, was sponsored on all nine UC campuses for the first time this summer. Student interns trained with labor groups in organizing, research, and labor law, providing the labor movement with a future generation of talent.

Visiting Scholars Program

Doing research at IRLE was such a great experience! The insights I gained from faculty and students in various research fields during my visit were enriching and will be beneficial throughout the rest of my career.

— IRLE visiting scholar Lily Zechner

IRLE's visiting scholars program is a hub for exchanging ideas on a global, comparative scale. Last year, our program expanded. We hosted 16 visiting scholars from eight countries, providing logistical support, work space, and community to emerging and established scholars who came to campus to advance their research.

We also launched a weekly Visiting Scholars Seminar Series, which provides visitors the opportunity to present new research on labor and employment research and exchange ideas with Berkeley scholars.

Faculty and Research Support

IRLE supports vital labor and employment research by providing funding, grant management, publishing opportunities, communications support, and community for Berkeley labor scholars.

Faculty Research Awardees

The IRLE award has allowed me to take new, innovative turns in my research on wage inequality in middle-income countries. I am immensely grateful for their support, particularly so early in my career.

— 2022-2023 faculty research awardee Claire Montialoux

Through our faculty research award program, last year we funded nine research projects across seven departments totaling over $166,868.

  • Sarah Anzia (Public Policy and Political Science), Early City Employee Organizations and the Development of Labor-Management Relations in the Public Sector
  • Irene Bloemraad (Sociology), Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop
  • Sydnee Caldwell (Business), Bargaining, Outside Options, and the Gender Wage Gap
  • Supreet Kaur (Economics), The Educational and Labor Market Impacts of Drug Use
  • Shelley Liu (Public Policy), How Gender and Migrant Status Affect Collective Action Among Street Vendors
  • Claire Montialoux (Public Policy), Work Sharing and Gender Inequality
  • Jesse Rothstein (Public Policy), Incidence of the EITC Across Firms
  • Danny Yagan (Economics)
  • Chunyan Yang (Education), A Mixed-Method Study about California Teachers’ Job Demands, Resources, and Wellbeing as Universal Pre-Kindergarten Early Implementers

Our Centers

Research, outreach, and educational initiatives emerging from IRLE's nationally-recognized centers help shape debates and policies on pressing labor and employment issues in California and beyond.

The Labor Center conducts research and education on issues related to labor and employment. The Labor Center’s curricula and leadership trainings serve to educate a diverse new generation of labor leaders. Labor Center researchers work with unions, government, and employers to develop innovative policy research and programs. The Center provides an important source of research and data on labor trends and issues for students, scholars, policymakers and the public.

California Policy Lab (CPL) generates research insights for government impact. Through hands-on partnerships with government agencies, CPL performs rigorous research across issue silos and builds the data infrastructure necessary to improve programs and policies that millions of Californians rely on every day. CPL focuses on six policy areas: education, criminal justice reform, poverty and the social safety net, labor and employment, health, and homelessness and high needs populations.

Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) is the national leader in early care and education workforce research and policy since 1999. CSCCE provides research and analysis on the preparation, working conditions, and compensation of the early care and education workforce. CSCCE researchers develop policy solutions and create spaces for teaching, learning, and educator activism. The Center's vision is an effective public early care and education system that secures racial, gender, and economic justice for the women whose labor is the linchpin of stable, quality services.

Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics (CWED) engages in cutting-edge academic and policy research on important economic issues including minimum wage and the gig economy.

California Public Employee Relations (CPER) provides the California public sector with resources to navigate workplace rights.

Research Highlights

Low-Wage Work and the Labor Movement

Labor Center and CWED researchers continue to examine working conditions in low-wage industries, especially for women, immigrants, and workers of color. Ongoing projects analyze the effectiveness of public policies at the local, state, and national levels and of organizing and bargaining strategies to raise labor standards. Important new minimum wage research has deepened our understanding of how higher minimum wages raise living standards and employment rates among low-wage workers, creating a more equitable U.S. labor market and generating more equitable economic growth.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS:

Photo: Virginia Hines

LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Proposed Health Care Minimum Wage Increase: What It Would Mean for Workers, Patients, and Industry

Enrique Lopezlira and Ken Jacobs

This Labor Center report examines the potential impacts of a California bill to raise the health care minimum wage from $15.50 to $25. Researchers found the bill, which was signed into law in October 2023, has the potential to substantially improve conditions for low-wage health care workers who provide essential services to the state, to ameliorate staffing shortages in the industry, and to improve quality of care. While there is a large variation across types of facilities, the wage increases under the bill would raise operating costs by about 3%, which represents 1.3% of personal health spending in the state.

Photo: Ariadna Creus and Àngel García

LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations

Jane McAlevey and Abby Lawlor

Oxford University Press published Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations by Labor Center Senior Policy Fellow Jane McAlevey and labor attorney Abbly Lawlor. Expanded from research done at the Labor Center, Rules to Win By draws on insights from recent hard-won union negotiation campaigns. McAlevey and Lawlor look to the workers leading some of the toughest fights today to provide a masterclass in participatory social change.

At a time when union demand is higher than it’s been in almost a century, Rules to Win By is required reading. This book is armor for the generation of workers poised to gain power world-wide for the working class.

— Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO

CWED RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Small Businesses and the Minimum Wage

Jesse Wursten and Michael Reich

A groundbreaking CWED study provides the first causal analysis of minimum wage effects on small businesses. Using state-of-the art statistical methods and thirty years of employer-reported Census data, the report finds that minimum wages increase pay in low-wage industries, particularly in small businesses, without a decline in employment rates. The authors also find no effect on the number of small business establishments. This report builds on the CWED team’s long track record of influential minimum wage analyses, which has included recent studies of how minimum wages influence racial wage gaps and parental labor supply.

Photo: Barry Dale Gilfry

Navigating the Evolving Economy: The Energy Transition and Emerging Workplace Technologies

The Labor Center's Green Economy and Future of Work teams are at the cutting edge of research on our rapidly shifting economy.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

Photo: Waltarrrrr

LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Fossil Fuel Layoff: The Economic and Employment Effects of a Refinery Closure on Workers in the Bay Area

Virginia Parks and Ian Baran

UC Berkeley Labor Center’s report provides valuable policy recommendations to assist public officials and communities in achieving a just transition to a clean energy economy.

— John Gioia, Chair of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors

This first-of-its-kind study looks at the difficult post-layoff job search of hundreds of California fossil fuel workers in the aftermath of the 2020 closure of the Marathon Martinez oil refinery in Contra Costa County. The report draws on a survey of 140 former Marathon workers and nearly two dozen interviews and finds that while the laid-off workers broadly support the region’s transition to a clean energy economy, they faced significant financial strain, mental health challenges, and difficulty securing high-quality, union jobs in the aftermath of the refinery shutdown.

LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Technology in the Public Sector and the Future of Government Work

Sara Hinkley

This Labor Center report looks at how the public sector uses technology and some of its benefits and pitfalls for workers and the public. It underscores how jobs change and workloads shift as technology advances and warns against massive outsourcing of IT expertise. Although many public employees are represented by a union, these fundamental workplace changes are too often made without their input.

Early Care and Education Workforce

I’m more hopeful than ever about the promise in various states to be able to raise compensation for early childhood staff, and excited to see the progress being made around the country.

— Bethany Patten, Director, Office of Early Childhood Illinois Department of Human Services, CSCCE Learning Community participant

For nearly 25 years, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) has led the early care and education (ECE) field in workforce research and policy as the only center whose sole mission is to realize a public ECE system that secures racial, gender, and economic justice for early educators.

Timely publications document the preparation, working conditions, compensation, and historic inequities of the ECE workforce and provide concrete recommendations to national, state, and local policymakers on how to shape much-needed reform in the struggling industry. Recent CSCCE research has been cited in hundreds of news articles and scores of efforts to rationalize and shape reform, including the 2023 Economic Report of the President.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

CSCCE RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Early Childhood History Organizing Ethos & Strategy (ECHOES)

Early Childhood History Organizing Ethos & Strategy (ECHOES) is an interactive learning space for people trying to reform the early care and education system. Through essays, timelines, and a searchable database of archival materials, stories, papers, audio and video clips, historical timelines, and contemporary material, ECHOES explores how we came to have our current system, how inequities echo through time, and activist movements through the years.

CSCCE RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Profiles of the California Early Care and Education Workforce, 2020

For decades, CSCCE has spoken up about the need for California lawmakers to support the early care and education workforce. These fact sheets show the breadth of educators’ expertise and education, in contrast to the poor compensation earned. The report was featured in a June 2023 NPR story.

California Economy, Workforce Development, and Social Safety Net

Research from the California Policy Lab (CPL) and Labor Center has provided key insights into how California's working families have fared pre- and post-pandemic and measured the impacts and effectiveness of a range of social safety net programs and policies.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

Photo: James Castaneda

CALIFORNIA POLICY LAB RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

California Credit Dashboard

Sarah Hoover, Steve Ramos and Evan White

CPL’s California Credit Dashboard uses credit bureau data to provide quarterly updates on the financial health of Californians. The April 2023 update showed a dramatic surge in auto loan debt during the past ten years, with Californians taking on larger and longer loans with monthly payments also growing nearly 50%. The Dashboard updates have been covered by the Sacramento Bee, KPBS, and Capital Public Radio.

CALIFORNIA POLICY LAB RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

Identifying the Impacts of Job Training Programs in California

Jesse Rothstein, Robert Santillano, Till von Wachter, Wahid Khan and Mary Yang

The analysis gives us data-driven evidence on the positive impacts several of our programs have on worker employment and earnings 3 years post-training, while also highlighting more can be done to improve program effectiveness.

— Jennifer Sturdy, Deputy Secretary of Evaluation, California Labor & Workforce Development Agency

CPL partnered with the California Workforce Development Board to conduct the first causal study estimating the impact of ten workforce training programs in California. The study found positive impacts on employment in eight of the programs and positive earnings impacts for five of the programs.

Criminal Justice

In 2020, California created the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code (CRPC) to reduce overcrowding in prisons and simplify and improve California’s penal code. California Policy Lab (CPL) is serving as the research partner to the CRPC.

Through the research partnership, CPL is providing in-depth research to inform updates to the state’s penal code, including reports focused on California’s Three Strikes law, Sentence Enhancements in California, and the impact pandemic-era release policies had on jail and prison populations. The research has been covered by the Davis Vanguard, Inland Valley News, and Capital Public Radio.

ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Photo: Jesstess87

Outreach and Policy Impact

IRLE's timely research has broad reach outside of academia, influencing national, state, and local policies around issues ranging from penal code updates and child care reform, to workforce development and minimum wage policies.

Testimony, Technical Assistance, and Public Presentations

IRLE researchers provide expert testimony, technical assistance, presentations, and public comment to local, state, and national lawmakers. Highlights include:

  • CSCCE is a core partner in the Department of Health and Human Services's new National Early Care and Education Workforce Center. The Center will provide technical assistance and rigorous research to advance the recruitment and retainment of a diverse, qualified, and effective early care and education workforce.
  • Lea Austin testified before the California State Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review on “California’s Early Care and Education Landscape.”
  • Wanzi Muruvi and Anna Powell presented on Early Care and Education Workforce Studies to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
  • Lea Austin testified to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Democrats in a closed-door briefing entitled “The Current State of Early Care and Education.”
  • CPL Executive Director Evan White presented on linking tax administrative data with state social services data at the Federation of Tax Administrators Revenue Estimate and Tax Research Conference and also presented to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research about the California Policy Lab.
  • In 2020, California created the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code (CRPC) to reduce overcrowding in prisons and simplify and improve California’s penal code. CPL is serving as the research partner to the CRPC.
  • The Labor Center's Labor Management Partnership team spearheaded a gathering of more than 100 practitioners in Sacramento to shape the future of the California Workforce Development Board’s historic investment in the High Road Initiative. The Initiative supports high-quality jobs to address the climate crisis and the needs of economically marginalized communities.
  • The Labor Center's Technology and Work team debriefed federal agency officials on the White House’s efforts to address worker surveillance and automated management.
  • The Labor Center was selected to lead the research for the Bay Area High Road Transition Collaborative, which received a $5 million planning grant from the Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF).
  • The Labor Center's Health Care team will provide research to support the effective implementation of California's new Office of Health Care Affordability. This office will play an important role in addressing rising health care costs and access to care for California workers.

IRLE research also informed federal policy proposals:

Media Highlights

IRLE research and experts are regularly cited in major state and national media outlets, helping to shape the public discourse on a wide range of pressing labor and employment issues and policies.

Labor Center Expansion

IRLE and the Labor Center are supporting the growth of new labor centers. Six months after receiving an unprecedented increase in funding from the state legislature, new labor centers launched on five campuses across the University of California: UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Cruz, with another center in the works at UC Santa Barbara. These all supported by existing centers here at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Merced. UC Berkeley Labor Center co-chair Ken Jacobs served on the five-member committee that allocated funding to the new labor centers, and we have provided and continue to provide technical assistance and advice as the new centers are developed.

This expanded network of UC centers committed to putting workers at the center of California’s economy will build upon UC’s decades-long labor research and education programs that have provided policy makers, labor and community leaders with cutting-edge research focused on working Californians, especially workers of color, immigrants, and low-wage workers.

Labor Center's Leadership Development Program

Through in-depth trainings with workers and staff organizers and technical assistance, the Labor Center's Leadership Development Program helps worker and community organizations conduct their work more strategically.

Financials

Income

Expenditures by Center

IRLE Central Spending

Thank you to our funders!

  • Administration for Children and Families
  • Alliance for Early Success
  • Arnold Ventures
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Blue Shield of California Foundation
  • BlueGreen Alliance
  • California State Association of Counties
  • California Children and Families Commission
  • California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls
  • California Community Foundation
  • California Department of Food and Agriculture
  • California Department of Motor Vehicles
  • California Department of Public Health
  • The California Endowment
  • California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development
  • California Health Care Foundation
  • California Law Revision Commission
  • California Wellness Foundation
  • California Workforce Development Board
  • Child Trends Incorporated
  • Clean Slate Initiative
  • Cornell University
  • Covered California
  • David and Lucile Packard Foundation
  • U.S. Department of Energy
  • First 5 California
  • Ford Foundation
  • Foundation for Child Development
  • Heising-Simons Foundation
  • Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
  • Institute of Education Studies (IES)
  • The James Irvine Foundation
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Lyle Spencer Foundation
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, J-PAL North America
  • National Education Association
  • National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health
  • The National Institute on Retirement Security
  • The National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • New Venture Fund
  • Oregon Department of Education
  • Paris School of Economics
  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
  • Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
  • Rosenberg Foundation
  • Russell Sage Foundation
  • Sierra Health Foundation
  • Smith Richardson Foundation
  • The European Research Council
  • The San Francisco Foundation
  • Tipping Point Community
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture
  • University of California Office of the President
  • W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation
  • W.K. Kellogg Foundation
  • Washington Center for Equitable Growth
  • The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
  • The William T. Grant Foundation
  • Woven Foundation

Support our groundbreaking research

IRLE partners with emerging and established researchers at UC Berkeley and beyond to foster innovative analysis and research that influences policy and improves workers’ lives. Your donation supports student programs and fellowships, as well as research awards for UC Berkeley faculty as they deliver hard evidence about inequality, the economy, and the nature of work.

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