Strengthening the labor movement for a sustainable, inclusive economy.

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Spotlight

UC Berkeley Labor Center

Labor Center research and Proposition 22

One of the initiatives California voters are deciding this fall is Proposition 22. This initiative carves out an exception from state labor law for app-based transportation and delivery gig companies, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart, allowing the companies to continue to classify their workers as independent contractors rather than employees. Labor Center chair Ken Jacobs along with Michael Reich, economics professor and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, have produced several papers that examine the implications of Prop 22 compared to employee status for drivers, consumers, taxpayers, and the companies.

Carol Zabin

Putting California on the High Road: A Jobs and Climate Action Plan for 2030

California’s ambitious path towards a carbon-neutral economy is complex, involves and affects different industries and occupations in multiple ways, and holds both promise and challenges for the state’s working families. The analysis and recommendations here present actions that show a high road to climate policy is both valuable and feasible.

Los Angeles Times

Clean energy jobs are coming. Here’s how to make sure they’re good jobs

Joe Biden said at the Democratic National Convention that America should “lead the world in clean energy and create millions of new good-paying jobs.” Similar thinking underlies the Green New Deal, which declares a goal of “guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.” So how do we actually create those kinds of family-supporting jobs, and give people the skills to fill them?

Françoise Carré, Chris Tilly, Chris Bennerand Sarah Mason

Change and Uncertainty, Not Apocalypse: Technological Change and Store-Based Retail

In this report, we focus on trends in technology adoption in the retail sector, looking beyond the effects of the current crisis to trace how retailers are using digital technologies in ways that alter the quality and quantity of front-line retail jobs. While we recognize the pandemic’s possible impacts on the retail workplace throughout the report, the bulk of our discussion concerns longstanding trends that appear likely to continue over the next five years or longer.