The Future of Work Research Program
“The factory jobs we’re upset about losing weren’t good jobs 100 years ago. They were dangerous, insecure, and low-wage. Union organizing, political and direct action turned them into ‘middle class’ jobs. Maybe that is what we have to do today with the service jobs that are taking over our economy: not stop the trend but make them jobs that will support families and communities.”
— Mark Brenner
Keynote Address,
Conference on the Future of Work in Massachusetts
UMass Boston, April 28, 2005
The Future of Work in Massachusetts is a joint research project of the Labor Centers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, and Lowell, funded by the University of Massachusetts' President's Office with monies provided by the Massachusetts legislature. The project encompasses diverse research efforts to describe, analyze, and document the rapid transformation that work is undergoing in Massachusetts.
Up and down the occupational structure, citizens in the Commonwealth are facing a complex web of changes in their workplaces and work lives. Policy makers, leaders of community, civic and labor organizations need resources to assist them in understanding and responding to these changes. The goal of this project is to help provide those resources.
Future of Work in Massachusetts projects include:
- The
Future of Work in Massachusetts On-Line Research Center
The LRC is leading this project to build an on-line research center and an open source database about jobs and employment in Massachusetts. The database will provide organizations and agencies actively involved in research and/or organizing around jobs and economic development in Massachusetts access to employer-specific data about job and employer characteristics. By open-source, we mean that participating organizations and agencies could more easily share information, develop knowledge, and coordinate actions to influence job and economic development in our communities. - The
Future of Work Paper Series
The LRC is publishing a series of papers about different aspects of work and employment within Massachusetts. A list of currently published papers, and PDF files of the papers, are available at the link above. - The
Future of Work Symposium—The Labor Movement’s Role in Workforce
Development
This symposium, hosted by the LRC in April 2006, featured Nancy Mills, Executive Director of the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute. Ms. Mills spoke of the role of labor, public education, and tax dollars in workforce development. - The
Future of Work in Massachusetts,
edited by Tom Juravich.
One of the central goals of the Future of Work project is to advance the state of our knowledge about work and its future in Massachusetts. With this in mind, we commissioned twelve pieces of original research covering a wide range of topics.The findings from this research were presented at our statewide conference in Boston in April 2005. They are being gathered in an edited volume to be published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Drafts of the papers are available at the link above. - Bread
WithOUT Roses: The Degradation of the American Workplace
This unique collaboration with photographer Paul Shoul is a series of four case studies of Massachusetts workplaces.The project is based on more than one hundred interviews with workers in four Massachusetts workplaces – nurses in the operating room in Boston Medical Center; Verizon call center representatives; Guatemalan Mayans in the fish processing industry in New Bedford; and industrial workers who lost their jobs when Jones-Beloit closed its doors in Pittsfield. Mr. Shoul’s photographs help capture their stories and put a face on what is happening to Massachusetts workers. - The
Future of Work in MA: A Statewide Conference
On April 28, 2005 labor and community leaders came together with UMass faculty and staff at UMass Boston to explore issues of the changing economy, workplace change and their impact on workers. The conference featured reports from twelve pieces of research that were commissioned for the project, as well as a number of panels and interactive workshops.
The UMass Labor Extension programs have developed a curriculum based on this conference, and their curriculum has been integrated into a Labor Studies course at UMass Boston.