Dr. Steven Pitts
Labor Policy Specialist

Steven Pitts came to the Labor Center in August of 2001 from Houston, Texas. Steven received his Ph.D. in economics with an emphasis on urban economics from the University of Houston in 1994. His M.A. is also from the University of Houston and he holds an B.A. from Harvard University. For the 15 years prior to his arrival at the Labor Center, Steven taught economics at the Houston Community College and, for five years, he was an adjunct lecturer in the African American Studies Program at the University of Houston. At the Labor Center, Steven focuses on alternative strategies for worker organizing, and economic development and social policy with an emphasis on labor–community alliances.

Areas of Expertise
• African American Workers
• Alternative Strategies for Worker Organizing
• Union Leadership Development

Current Projects
Black Workers and Job Quality: A Multi-City Research Project
An investigation of the level of low-wage employment among Black workers between 1970 and 2000. The study will examine Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City as well as the nation as a whole.

C. L. Dellums African American Union Leadership School
An eight-session leadership development program specifically designed to develop the leadership skills of Bay Area trade unionists – both elected union officers and local member leaders – who are deeply committed to strengthening the relationship between the labor movement and the Black community.

Recent Publications
Beyond the Mountaintop: King’s Prescription for Poverty with William Spriggs, April 2008.

“Bad Jobs: The Overlooked Crisis in the Black Community,” New Labor Forum, Winter, 2007.

Job Quality and Black Workers: An Examination of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, August 2007.

The Fight for Quality Jobs: Our Battle Against Neoliberalism, Race, Poverty & the Environment, Vol XIV, #1, Spring 2007.

Black Workers in the Bay Area: Employment Trends and Job Quality 1970-2000, November 2006.

Black Workers in the Bay Area: 1970-2000: A Data Brief, with Steve Wertheim, September 5, 2005.

Organize...to Improve the Quality of Jobs in the Black Community: A report on jobs and activism in the African American community, May 2003.

“Community-based Organizing of Black Workers,” a paper presented at the United Association for Labor Education National Conference, April 2003.

“African American Intragroup Inequality and Corporate Globalization,” with Jessica Gordon Nembhard and Patrick L. Mason, in Cecilia A. Conrad, John Whitehead, Patrick Mason, and James Stewart, eds., African Americans in the U.S. Economy, New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Curriculum Vitae