Author: Stephanie Luce

I talked to economists, historians and analysts about what is going on in the economy. See my interviews in Convergence magazine with Robert Pollin, Heidi Shierholz, Amy Hanauer, Heather McGhee and Samir Sonti. We talk about inflation, unemployment, tax policy, the Fed, inequality, and more!

New York State is considering proposed state legislation that would raise wages for home care workers. Fair Pay for Home Care would establish a minimum base wage and provider reimbursement for home care workers at 150 percent of the highest minimum wage in each of the state’s wage regions–in practice, this would lift home care wages to a minimum of $22.50 per hour, up from as little as $13.20. 

This analysis estimates the costs and savings from passing the legislation. We find that State costs would be more than offset by economic benefits. The state has the opportunity to use federal funding, which would fully cover the costs of wage increases in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023.

The nation’s home care workforce has more than doubled in size over the past decade, and rapid growth will continue as the population ages. But home care jobs are underpaid, physically and emotionally demanding, and often involve unpredictable hours. As a result, even before the pandemic, the home care field suffered from high turnover and severe labor shortages.

In New York State, as many as 260,000 new home care job openings will open statewide between 2022 and 2032 due to rising demand.  But low wages and poor work conditions mean that many of these jobs will see high turnover or remain unfilled altogether.

Isaac Jabola-Carolus and Ruth Milkman and I have shown that public investment in higher pay for home care would mitigate these challenges: substantial wage increases would attract more workers to the field, help to alleviate shortages, and allow older adults and people with disabilities to live in their own homes instead of institutions. New analysis, presented in this new research brief, reveals further potential impacts of such an investment. By ensuring higher wages in home care, the State can create thousands of high-quality jobs for women, people of color, and immigrants.

How do groups in society achieve the changes they seek?  This course will explore how elites, labor unions, community organizations, political parties and social movements organize, develop strategies and deploy resources to advance their interests and win major changes in society.  To provide a shared framework, we’ll begin with an overview of classical and contemporary theories of power and cause and effect.  We’ll look at elite strategies to wield power developed in the military, Silicon Valley, business, and politics.  We’ll also consider five “strategies from below,” including building mass organization, disruptive movements, efforts to capture governing power, “inside-outside” strategies.

In the eternal battle between David and Goliath, how and why does David sometimes win?  We’ll examine a variety of case studies from the right and left, including the orchestrated rise of neoliberalism, and cutting-edge campaigns from contemporary racial justice and labor and other movements.  The class will focus heavily on introducing applied tools for strategy development from a variety of traditions.  We’ll review tools commonly used in campaigns like power analysis and strategy charts, but also introduce frameworks like “lean start up,” reverse engineering, OODA loops, emergent strategy, scenario planning, policy feedback loops, time shifting and methods to harness and work with strong emotions. The class is appropriate for intermediate to advanced social change organizers and campaigners, as well as for graduate students. The class will feature guest faculty and practitioners with extensive experience building winning campaigns.

Departmental permission required.

Faculty

Stephanie Luce is Professor of Labor Studies at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a member of the PSC-CUNY/AFT faculty staff union and has spent many years working with unions and labor community coalitions on living wage campaigns, policy fights and organizing projects.

Deepak Bhargava is Distinguished Lecturer at CUNY’s School of Labor and Urban Studies and has been involved in social change movements and organizations for over 30 years, including 16 years leading Community Change.

Who Should Apply

This class is suitable for both current graduate students and for non-matriculated students who are experienced labor, community, environmental or social movement leaders, organizers, or campaigners.  Departmental permission required. 

Meeting Schedule and Requirements

The class will meet on Thursday evenings from 6:15 – 8:45 pm Eastern time.  The class will be held entirely online, so non-NYC students can participate fully in the course.  The first class will be held on 8/26/2021 and the term runs for 15 weeks ending on 12/16/2021.

There will be extensive reading, writing and class engagement as part of this course.  Non-matriculating students who are social change practitioners will be assessed based on their application of tools presented in the course. 

Cost:

Exact tuition and fee levels have not been set for the fall term, but for the spring 2020 term fees and tuition costs for non-matriculating New York State residents were $1552.50 and for non-matriculating out-of-state students $2707.50.  For graduate students, the total cost was the same, plus an additional $10.00 in application fees. 

(Up to date information on fees and tuition can be found here).

Deadline for Applications: May 30^th.  But the class will be filled as successful applications are approved, so early submission is strongly encouraged.

Application Form is here. 

Those accepted into the class will be asked to fill out the CUNY enrollment application form.

Isaac Jabola-Carolus, Ruth Milkman and I find that raising pay for home care workers is not only a good thing to do, it is good economic policy. Our report finds that lifting home care pay toward a living wage, and providing health care, would generate over $7.6 billion in economic benefits, fill nearly 20,000 open home care jobs and create 18,000 jobs in other sectors. Read the full report here.

The 2020 “State of the Unions” report Ruth Milkman and I write each Labor Day is out.

This year, we took a look at the impact of Covid-19 on some of the largest unions. Between furloughs and layoffs, Covid infections, and deaths, the numbers are devastating.

Union density continues to decline overall and in New York City. But despite the attacks on public-sector unions, public sector density went up in New York City. This may be evidence that the unions’ efforts to do serious internal organizing paid off.

Over 60% of all union members in the city, and over 70% of all members in the state, work in just three sectors: education, health care, and public administration.

Housing was already a problem before the pandemic. Now, with rising unemployment and a growing number of evictions, it is time for labor organizations to step up in the fight for housing.

In this article in Labor Notes, I argue that unions and other worker organizations can play a unique role in solving the housing and debt crisis both for union members and for the unorganized.

Five years ago, workers at Gawker Media voted to form a union with the Writer’s Guild of America, East. That set off a wave of unionization among digital writers and podcasters. In five years, the Guild has organized 21 shops and over 2,000 workers.

In honor of the 5 year anniversary, Haley Shaffer and I interviewed Guild members and organizers to hear how much the union has accomplished. See the report and website display here!

The pandemic is showing us just how creative and caring people can be.

In this article in Organizing Upgrade I talk about a world in which work is centered around taking care of one another and pursuing our passions; where “essential work” is what helps us develop as humans rather than what makes the most profit.