UC Berkeley Labor Center

09/02/2026

hat’s a wrap on summer 2026! 🎬☀️ From hands-on projects to unforgettable learning moments, our student interns have spent the last few months diving headfirst into real in-the-field experience.

Special thank you to all the organizations that hosted our interns this summer East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy SEIU Local 521 SEIU-USWW, Oakland Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, Inc. Trabajadores Unidos Workers United North Bay Labor Council Regional Tenant Organizing Network UNITE HERE Local 2

09/01/2026

How are CA unions faring in the face of an unfriendly federal administration, a militarized deportation campaign, and a continuing cost-of-living crisis? Check out this new report from UCLA IRLE, with contributions from 7 UC labor centers (including us).

A report from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, including research from the UC Berkeley Labor Center. This edition of the “State of the Unions” report offers readers insight into how California unions are faring in the face of an unfriendly federal administration, a milita...

08/31/2026

https://labornotes.org/2026/08/dolly-parton-helped-us-speak-and-join-together

Dolly Parton’s song, “9 to 5,” has endured as a beloved anthem for nearly half a century. What many people don’t know is that the direct inspiration for the song—and the hit movie—was the 9 to 5 working women’s movement that began in Boston in the early 1970’s. It was the movement th...

08/24/2026

Should Becerra cruise to victory in November, he will face what may be the steepest decline in health insurance coverage in a generation, one that will land especially hard in his home state. NPR KFF Health News

The nation's uninsured rate hit a historical low when Xavier Becerra was health secretary. Now he wants to be California's next governor as Trump's actions have driven people off health insurance.

08/20/2026

There have been lots of changes to Medi-Cal and Covered California, from both federal and state policy. Our new maps help folks understand the consequences of policymakers' decisions. https://mailchi.mp/berkeley/updated-maps-medi-cal-and-covered-california-enrollment

08/19/2026

As part of our work for the Green Empowerment Zone, we’ve been fortunate to work with PSE Healthy Energy on a deep dive into environmental siting concerns related to clean energy manufacturing.

The results include detailed information on processes and risks for key technologies, along with pragmatic mitigation strategies. And there’s good news here: many of these technologies pose limited risks, and containing these risks is well within reach.

This information can help policymakers, businesses, and communities make smart decisions about siting and regulation for new clean energy manufacturing facilities.

Check out the new report!!

PSE Healthy Energy assessed air, water, and hazardous waste risks from manufacturing 18 clean energy technologies in California’s Green Empowerment Zone.

08/19/2026

As part of our work for the Green Empowerment Zone, we’ve been fortunate to work with PSE Healthy Energy on a deep dive into environmental siting concerns related to clean energy manufacturing.

The results include detailed information on processes and risks for key technologies, along with pragmatic mitigation strategies. And there’s good news here: many of these technologies pose limited risks, and containing these risks is well within reach.

This information can help policymakers, businesses, and communities make smart decisions about siting and regulation for new clean energy manufacturing facilities.

Check out the new report!!

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

08/13/2026

Application deadline extended to August 18! The Skills to Win Workshop is a six-week series for rank and file members and staff of unions, worker associations, worker centers, and community organizations that are embarking on, or in the midst of, organizing campaigns. Learn more and apply!

Join us once a week for two hours on Zoom for the Skills to Win workshop, which focuses on how to build high participation organizations. October 9-November 13, 2025.

08/11/2026

We're proud, too!

We are so proud of our interns Esbeidy and Renata for getting down with tenant organizing all summer long! It is bitter sweet to see them graduate from their internship because we will miss them SO much but we are also so excited to see what they go on to do with the organizing skills they developed this summer🌻💓

08/10/2026

Does fraud explain the increase in CA's IHSS spending? No, say experts: “IHSS spending has grown rapidly in recent years due to the increased need for home care among seniors and individuals with disabilities, and increased home care worker wages.”

Announcing a pause on more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to Minnesota and California last month, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz accused state officials of being too lax about fraud, citing among other things the results of a provider verification process i...