The University of California-Berkeley’s Labor Center has announced a new data tool to help labor union negotiators, researchers, media, and policymakers better understand the state of play of union negotiations around the digital economy.
Lisa Kresge points out that, “Unions are negotiating around specific workplace technologies, rather than negotiating around technology in general.”
Last month, officials with Valero Energy announced they would be closing the company’s 170,000 barrels-per-day oil refinery in Benicia, California—a city of 25,000 residents, east of San Francisco. The plant, spread across 900 acres, employs over 400 workers, and is scheduled to close in April 2026.
According to researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, across the country, employers are increasingly using data and algorithms in ways that stand to have profound consequences for wages, working conditions, and equity.
“Foreign auto manufacturers can no longer count on the southern states to provide cheap labor at the expense of working families.”
A study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that even a year after closure, a quarter of the workers were still unemployed. Those that were employed earned a median of $12 less than their previous jobs.
A new report provides a first-of-a-kind analysis on just how important pensions are in reducing wealth inequality.
The Berkeley researchers show that the low wages paid to healthcare support workers, direct care workers, and healthcare service workers in California have resulted in their constant struggle to meet basic needs.
Aida Farmand’s work finds that older workers have become more exposed to the risk of job displacement over time.
“Likely outcomes are improved wages for the 550,000 fast food workers in the state, greater worker voice in addressing working conditions in the industry, and reductions in injury and violence on the job,” Ken Jacobs says.
One study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that 7 out of 10 Latinos had no access to a workplace retirement plan and that over half of private-sector employees had absolutely no retirement assets.
A widely-cited report authored by Carol Zabin of the UC Berkeley Labor Center casts a similar critical light on the owner-model, as it shifts risks and costs to the drivers.
The report found that not only do teachers have better retirement outcomes with a pension plan, but pensions are a critical workforce retention tool. This is a key consideration as public schools in many communities grapple with teacher shortages.
That the solar and wind sectors employ such large shares in construction is not without benefits. It means that a potential wind and solar jobs boom would create plenty of work for people without college degrees.
Labor activists say Uber is failing to provide drivers basic protections only offered to employees, such as healthcare and the ability to unionize. They also say the protections outlined in Prop 22 are inadequate, pointing to an analysis from the Labor Center at the University of California Berkeley that found the minimum wage under Prop. 22 would only be $5.64 due to loopholes and hidden costs.
Labor activists say Uber is failing to provide drivers basic protections, such as healthcare, wage protections and the ability to unionize, because they aren’t employees.
An analysis from the Labor Center at the University of California Berkeley found the minimum wage under Prop. 22 would only be $5.64 due to loopholes and hidden costs. The analysis also found that the vast majority of drivers wouldn’t be eligible for the healthcare subsidies.
“BLS statistics are just not picking up workers who do independent contracting on the side, for supplemental income in addition to a W-2 job,” says University of California economist Annette Bernhardt PhD., author of “The Gloves-off Economy.” “This is a real significant challenge to understanding what’s going on in the labor market.”
Annette Bernhardt is the director of the low wage work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and the preeminent researcher on California’s contingent economy. Her recent research has emphasized the diversity of the contingent economy: a relatively small portion of the California workforce in 2016, an estimated 8.5%, who rely on contingent work full-time, and a greater number who use it to supplement incomes.
