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.”