Nari Rhee is an Associate Academic Specialist, working on policy research and development to expand retirement security for workers in California. She completed a Ph.D. dissertation in Geography at UC Berkeley in 2007, studying working class politics in Silicon Valley, and earned her M.A. in Urban Planning at UCLA in 1998. Prior to her current position, she was a Visiting Scholar and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Labor Center, focused on workforce development and models of organizing in the human services sector. She has partnered with labor and community organizations throughout her academic career to generate rigorous research on issues affecting low-wage workers and their families.

Areas of Expertise

• Pensions and Retirement Security
• Public and Human Services Organizing
• Urban Political Economy

Recent Publications

“Analysis of Proposed Ballot Initiatives for City of Redding Retirement Benefit Reductions.” Briefing Paper. UC Davis Center for Regional Change. February 2010.

The Social Benefits of Unionization in the Long-Term Care Sector, With Carol Zabin, in John Logan (ed.) Academics on Employee Free Choice: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Labor Law Reform , May 2009.

“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