Nari Rhee is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Labor Research and Education, working on policy development and academic research.  She recently completed a Ph.D. dissertation in Geography at UC Berkeley on working class politics in Silicon Valley. With Carol Zabin, she works on workforce development in the direct support services sector. Future projects include preparing a book manuscript for academic publication and researching union organizing in the human services sector.  Her research interests include labor politics, urban politics and social movements.

Areas of Expertise
• Labor-Community Coalitions
• Urban Political Economy
• Local Affordable Housing Policy
• Public and Human Services Organizing

Current Projects
Improving Direct Support Jobs in the Developmental Disabilities Services Sector
Evaluation of the impact of training, unionization and organizational change at an East Bay nonprofit on worker turnover, retention and tenure; HR costs; and consumer outcomes.

New Organizing Models in the Care Industries
This research will analyze model sector-based organizing efforts in three home- and community-based care industries—childcare, homecare and consumer-directed services for people with developmental disabilities—through a qualitative, comparative case study method.

Recent Publications
“Aggregating Dispersed Workers: Union Organizing in the “Care” Industries,” with Carol Zabin. (Under review.) Geoforum, submitted March 17, 2008.

“Building an Inclusive City: Labor-Community Coalitions and the Struggle for Urban Power in San Jose,” with Julie Sadler, in Lowell Turner and Daniel B. Cornfield (eds.), Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University/ILR Press, 2007.

The Limits of Prosperity: Growth, Inequality and Poverty in the North Bay, with Dan Acland. Working paper. Santa Rosa, CA: New Economy Working Solutions, 2005.

Review of The Next Los Angeles: Struggle for a Livable City by Robert Gottlieb et al., in Labor Studies Journal, 30(3), 112-113, 2005.

Living Wage Jobs and Quality of Life: The Community Benefits Initiative in San Jose, in Perspectives on Work: The Magazine of the Industrial Relations Research Association online edition, Fall 2004. (link to journal)

Building Regional Power: The South Bay Labor Council in Silicon Valley, with Barbara Byrd, Working USA, 8(2): 131-154, 2004.

Curriculum Vitae