The University of California, Irvine’s School of Social Ecology and School of Law partnered to oversee a new campus center that provides timely and policy-relevant labor research. Modeled after existing centers at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Merced, the UCI Law Labor Center builds upon previous campus efforts to investigate low-wage worker sectors in Orange County.
Funding for the new UCI center was made possible by a historic allocation in California’s 2022-23 budget, passed last summer. It includes $13 million to expand such programs across the University of California system. UCI is receiving $1.5 million over three years for its center.
The UCI funding will pay students to work as part of Labor Summer, a full-time, eight-week internship program that pairs students with labor organizations. In addition, a director and an attorney will be hired to operate the center, and stipends will be awarded to doctoral students to support the interns and help create programming, which will include community organizing and education clinics on campus and in Santa Ana.
“Our students are coming from families that are struggling economically — many have been touched by union and community organizing campaigns — and are looking for ways to connect their own education to the people with whom they came up,” said Sameer Ashar, clinical professor of law and director of UCI’s Workers, Law and Organizing Clinic. “Through the Labor Center, UCI students can find meaningful, compelling work connected to their own communities.”
The aim is to link UCI students directly to worker organizations through hands-on educational opportunities.
“We will support up to 12 undergraduate and graduate students and four law students to participate in Labor Summer through full-time, paid internships,” said Virginia Parks, professor of urban planning and public policy and director of the center.
In addition, the center will form an advisory board and collaborate with local labor unions and community-based workers’ rights organizations to develop timely research initiatives.
