Katie Quan
Associate Chair


Katie Quan is Associate Chair of the Labor Center, and has worked as a labor specialist at the Labor Center since 1998. Her areas of specialization are labor strategies in the global economy, policies that promote the rights of immigrant workers, and equity issues for women workers. Formerly chair of the Labor Center, she now heads the Labor Center’s education and training activities. Prior to joining the Labor Center staff, Katie was an international vice-president of UNITE, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. She rose through the ranks, having been a rank and file seamstress, shop steward, union organizer, and manager of the union’s Pacific Northwest District Council. Katie chaired the founding convention of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and her organizing experiences have been documented by Ruth Milkman in Women in Unions (Cornell ILR Press, 1993), and by Xiaolan Bao in Holding Up More than Half the Sky (University of Illinois Press 2001). She continues her involvement with garment worker and women’s issues as a Board member of the Worker Rights Consortium, the Labor Project for Working Families, the International Labor Rights Fund, the Working America Education Fund, and the Working for Good Jobs in America Fund.

Areas of Expertise
• Global Labor Strategies
• Immigrant Workers Rights
• Race, Class and Gender

Recent Publications
“Workers and Communities versus Walmart: A Comparison of Organized Resistance in the United Stated and China.” In Anita Chan, ed., Walmart in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011, pp. 239-251.

“The China Watch,” (book review of New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in China, By Yan Hairong). New Labor Forum, Volume 19, Number 3, Fall 2010, 93-95.

New Approaches to Organizing Women and Young Workers: Social Media & Work Family Issues, with Netsy Firestein and Deborah King, July 2010.

"Memories of the 1982 ILGWU Strike in New York Chinatown," Amerasia Journal 35:1 (2009): 76-91. (Link to journal)

"Evolving Labor Relations in the Women's Apparel Industry." In Charles J. Whalen, ed., New Directions in the Study of Work and Employment. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. December 2008.

Use of Global Value Chains by Labor Organizers, Competition and Change, vol. 12, no. 1, March 2008, pages 89-104. (link to journal)

“Women Crossing Borders to Organize,” in Cobble, Dorothy Sue, The Sex of Class: Women and the Future of U.S. Labor Movements, Ithaca: Cornell ILR Press, 2007.

Unions Need to Talk, International Union Rights, vol. 11, issue 4, 2004. (link to journal)

“Global Strategies for Workers: How Class Analysis Clarifies Us and Them and What We Need to Do,” in Zweig, Michael, What’s Class Got To Do With It? 2004, Ithaca: Cornell ILR Press.

Strategies for Garment Worker Empowerment in the Global Economy, UC Davis Journal of International Law & Policy, Fall 2003, vol. 10, no. 1. (link to journal)

China and the American Anti-Sweatshop Movement, China Rights Forum: The Journal of Human Rights in China. April 2003, no. 1, 2003. (link to journal)

Advancing an Asian Agenda for Immigration Reform, Asian American Policy Review, Harvard University, vol. 12, 2003. (link to journal)

Homecare Worker Organizing in California: An Analysis of a Successful Strategy, with Linda Delp, Labor Studies Journal, West Virginia University Press, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 2002.

Union Organizing in California: Challenges and Opportunities, with Carol Zabin and Linda Delp, The State of California Labor 2001, University of California Institute for Labor and Employment, 2001.

“Race, Class and Gender in the U.S. Labor Movement, ” New Labor Forum, New York: Queens College Labor Resource Center, no. 9, Spring/Summer 2001.

State of the Art of Social Dialogue – USA, InFocus Programme on Strengthening Social Dialogue, Working Paper No. 2, Geneva: International Labour Office, March 2000.

A Global Labour Contract: The Case of the Collective Agreement Between the Association of Flight Attendants (AFL-CIO) and United Airlines, Transfer, The European Trade Union Institute, vol. 6, 2000. (link to journal)


Curriculum Vitae