RELEASE: Pandemic-Related Trends in Warehouse Technology Adoption
A predicted boom in warehouse automation did not materialize, according to this new report.
On the sidelines of PSI Congress, we caught up with Jane to discuss her perspectives on organising – and winning!
“It is necessary to ensure that impactful decisions are still made by a human,” said Annette Bernhardt, Director of the Technology and Work programme at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Most affected workers will be women and people of color, who more frequently work in lower-wage health care positions, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
In this conversation, which focuses on labor and retirement issues, Dr. Rhee emphasizes the challenges faced by low and middle-income workers in the U.S. retirement system, particularly in the private sector. The discussion touches on topics such as the inadequacy of Social Security for low-wage workers, barriers in defined contribution plans, and the impact of job characteristics on retirement benefits.
The role of AI as a tool for school and business was a key theme of the symposium. Annette Bernhardt, director of the technology and work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, emphasized the balance between worker privacy and the benefit of highly productive AI tools.
Last month, Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 1677, which would have required the UC Berkeley Labor Center to launch an impartial study to analyze the existing state scientist salary structure, compare it with that of state employees doing similar work and look into alternative salary structure models.
Sen. María Elena Durazo, the Los Angeles Democrat who wrote the original health care wage increase, pointed to a different cost estimate for the law provided by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. It projected the new law could save the state money by ensuring workers earn enough to avoid using public assistance.
Sen. María Elena Durazo, the Los Angeles Democrat who wrote the bill, points to data from the UC Berkeley Labor Center that anticipates how the new law could save money by helping workers avoid using public assistance. Better pay also means some relief with staffing issues, healthcare workers argue, which would benefit patients too.
A first-of-its-kind report published last month by the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, titled “Ensuring the Supply of Agricultural Truck Drivers,” used California’s tomato harvest to illustrate why finding sufficient drivers can be so hard.
Pensions, in general, reduce poverty, and importantly, the anti-poverty impact of pensions is greatest for Black and Latino retirees, as well as for retirees without a college degree, says the National Institute on Retirement Security.
According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, more than two-thirds of California’s fast-food workers are adults aged 20 and older. Nearly 70% live in households with four or more people, and their wages contribute 40% of their family’s annual income. Two-thirds of California fast-food workers are women, 8 in 10 are workers of color, and 6 in 10 Are Latino.
When they are paid off the books, workers receive far less compensation than employees or even recognized independent contractors.
Working conditions, however, have not kept pace with the growth. According to research by the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, construction workers—the vast majority of whom are immigrants, many undocumented—are paid low wages without benefits, often under the table. Less than 5% are covered by collective bargaining agreements, far below the national rate of more than 13%.
Hour-long interview with Jane McAlevey.
Most fast food workers 18 and older are the main providers for their families, according to Enrique Lopezlira, director of the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center’s Low Wage Work Program.
“The win rate has to be turned into gaining collective bargaining agreements” said Jacobs. “There won’t be a change in labor law unless large numbers of workers are in motion demanding unions, and that won’t happen without a large investment in organizing.”
Beyond the fast-food industry, public awareness around how taxpayers subsidized poor wages was growing. The living wage, or “fight for $15,” movement kicked off with a 2012 walkout at a New York City McDonald’s and aimed to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 to ensure it could meet workers’ basic expenses.
“It’s an important step toward addressing the high instability health care workers and employers have been facing in recent years,” Laurel Lucia said. “Staffing has been a widespread problem for health care workers around the country.”
The bills Newsom just signed add a new twist; they’re California’s first statewide minimums for specific economic sectors, according to Enrique Lopezlira, a labor economist at the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center.
The government uses tax breaks to encourage saving, with bigger deductions for bigger contributions (up to caps set by the IRS). That steers the biggest benefit to higher earners who can most afford to save, Rhee says. “We need to restructure the subsidies so that more of the tax benefits go towards low-income households that actually need the help.”
A predicted boom in warehouse automation did not materialize, according to this new report.
Monterey County has some of the highest hospital costs in the state. To better understand why health care costs are so high in this Central Coast county, there is an urgent need to collect and analyze data that can help point to causes and solutions to the problem.
A new report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center finds that defined benefit pensions—especially public pensions—are critical to providing adequate retirement income for California seniors, especially for women, Black, and Latino retirees, and those without a four-year college degree.
This report provides the first in-depth look at the labor market for agricultural truck drivers in California and the first study of this workforce anywhere in the U.S. in almost 30 years. It finds that, while there is not a shortage of people interested in truck driving, the industry faces challenges with retaining drivers, with turnover being especially high for long-haul drivers.
A study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center finds that union members are more likely to be women and people of color than 20 years ago.
A new UC Berkeley Labor Center policy brief finds that the state cost of a proposed $25/hr minimum wage for health workers would be offset through reduced safety net spending on those workers and their families.
A new UC Berkeley Labor Center report looking at pre-pandemic data in the San Francisco East Bay area shows that many workers and their families struggled to make ends meet even before COVID hit.
A new report from the University of California Berkeley Labor Center released Wednesday documents the difficult post-layoff job search and working conditions of hundreds of California fossil fuel workers in the aftermath of the 2020 closure of the Marathon Martinez oil refinery in Contra Costa County, providing an illuminating case study of the perils and needs of workers in the nation’s changing energy landscape.
A new Labor Center report looks at the impacts of a proposal to raise the health care minimum wage in California to $25 an hour.
An unprecedented ongoing $13 million allocation will fund five new centers, expand labor studies and occupational health programs across UC
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks a Senior Trainer for its Leadership Development Program.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks a Program Coordinator for its Leadership Development Program.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks applications for a Lead Policy Researcher in the Technology and Work Program.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks applications for a Lead Policy Researcher in the Technology and Work Program.
Teachers union leader Alex Caputo-Pearl has begun a year-long practitioner-in-residence appointment at the Labor Center, building on the Leadership Development Program’s partnerships with the NEA, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), and other educator unions.
One-hundred thirty-four students are participating in internships throughout California in the first UC-wide Labor Summer 2023 program.
An unprecedented ongoing $13 million allocation will fund five new centers, expand labor studies and occupational health programs across UC
We are pleased to welcome labor activists Seema N. Patel and Sam Appel to the Labor Center for a year-long residency.