The UC Berkeley Labor Center offers an exciting opportunity for UC students to become summer interns with cutting-edge unions and community-based organizations in Northern California. The Labor Summer Internship Program is an innovative PAID internship program for graduate and undergraduate students, providing University of California students with the opportunity to learn from and work with organizations fighting for justice for California's working people.

Students spend eight weeks with labor unions or community-based organizations, learning how to apply their skills in real world settings in campaigns that are making a difference for working people, especially immigrants and people of color.

Why apply to the Labor Summer Internship Program?
Many working people in California earn wages that can't support their families, never got or are losing their health care and pensions, and face a host of other challenges. This internship offers students the opportunity to hone their skills alongside working people who are struggling for positive change. With new energetic leadership and a rising commitment to organize immigrants and workers in diverse industries, the labor movement has resumed its role as a leader in the struggle for social justice. By working with labor and community organizations, students can learn through service about the struggles of workers, immigrants, women, and people of color.

Labor Summer interns in previous years have learned first hand how:

• Grocery workers prepare for contract negotiations and address the community impacts of Wal-Mart big box stores (United Food and Commercial Workers);
• Migrant farm workers improve their wages on California farms (United Farm Workers);
• Latino immigrants on construction sites enforce wage, hour, and health and safety laws (Ironworkers Union and La Raza Centro Legal's Day Laborer Program);
• Young restaurant workers raise work standards in the San Francisco restaurant industry (Young Workers United);
• Low-wage Chinese immigrant workers better enforce and improve existing wage and hour laws (Chinese Progressive Association);
• Low-wage childcare workers organize in Monterey and San Benito Counties (Service Employees International Union).

Salary
Undergraduate interns will be paid at the rate of $13.11 per hour for an eight-week period for a gross amount of $4,195.20
Graduate interns will be paid the UC Graduate Research Step II rate of $2,912 per month pro-rated for an eight-week period for a gross amount of $5,193.85.

Should I do it?
Have you ever organized a meeting? Researched an issue? Volunteered in your community? Taught a class? Do you have the courage to knock on a door and listen to someone's story? Can you imagine a better future for the working poor? If your answer to any of these questions is “yes” or if you want to learn how to do these things, then Labor Summer is for you!

How it works
The Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley offers PAID internships to graduate and undergraduate UC students to learn how to organize and do research to support social and economic justice for workers in California. The program has two tracks: Learn Organizing Skills and Research and Policy.

Structure of the program
The program begins with a one-week intensive orientation from June 13–17 at the UC Berkeley Labor Center where students in both tracks will learn the basics of the U.S. labor movement, with a special focus on Northern California labor issues. Mid-week the tracks divide and the Learn Organizing Skills interns learn strategic campaign planning and how to organize workers. Research and Policy interns are joined by researchers from labor unions and community-based organizations and learn the basics of strategic and policy research in a labor environment. At the end of the week, the interns in both tracks come back together and prepare for their seven-week field placements.

Looking for more information about the Labor Summer Internship Program to Learn Organizing Skills?

Looking for more information about the Labor Summer Internship Program on Research and Policy?

Looking for more information about hosting a Labor Summer intern at your union or community organization?