Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Community college students in Los Angeles who balance work and school face an array of difficult barriers: housing insecurities, mental health hurdles, inadequate financial aid, and parenting stress, among others. These inequities were only exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Student Balancing Act: Worker and Learner Experiences in Los Angeles’ Community Colleges analyzes the experiences of Los Angeles County community college students who attend school and who work. For this analysis, the authors subsetted the data of 391 survey responses and nine interviews collected from community college workers and learners and featured in the UCLA Labor Center and Dolores Huerta Labor Institute (DHLI) report Unseen Costs: The Experiences of Workers and Learners in Los Angeles County.

The Black jobs crisis is alive and well in the Inland Empire, with Black workers having the highest unemployment rates and lowest median earnings across the region. To address this, the newly-formed Inland Empire Black Worker Center (IEBWC) has implemented a pre-apprenticeship program for IE Works—a consortium of water/wastewater utilities and community groups in the Inland Empire—that prioritizes the respect and dignity of Black workers while also preparing them for high road jobs in the water/wastewater sector. Unlocking Potential: The Inland Empire Black Worker Center’s Transformative IE Works Program, a new report authored by the UCLA Center for the Advancement of Racial Equity (CARE) at Work at the UCLA Labor Center, showcases the results of this pioneering workforce development model. The program aims to provide stability, living wages, and a career path to support families utilizing a three-pronged approach: 1) internships for active college students, 2) pre-apprenticeship for those new to the trades, and 3) apprenticeship programs.

In 2018, New York City became one of the first cities to regulate the economics of app-based for-hire vehicles like Uber and Lyft, by establishing a minimum rate for drivers and a cap on the number of licenses for for-hire vehicles. To better understand driver pay and passenger fares in relation to the TLC’s minimum rates, this report offers an analysis of publicly available data from the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission’s High Volume For-Hire Vehicle (HVFHV) trip database. The report authors focused on HVFHV rides taken in February 2019, October 2019, April 2020, and April 2022 and analyzed approximately 50 million rides, exploring the passenger fares, driver pay, and commission fee companies are exacting from the fares per trip.

Janitors are an essential part of California’s economy. Janitors clean, sanitize, and maintain buildings and other indoor spaces while being some of the most exploited workers in the service industry. Many private sector janitors earn poverty wages and lack benefits, are routinely misclassified, subjected to wage theft, experience sexual harassment, and are exposed to unsafe working conditions. Based on our analysis of government data from the 5-year sample (2015–2019) of the American Community Survey (ACS) and a pooled 10-year sample (2011–2020) of the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS ORG), this research brief finds that across almost all measures of job quality and economic well-being, private-sector female janitors are significantly worse off than their male counterparts, earning lower median wages than male janitors, and reporting higher rates of poverty at nearly 45%. Low wages are prevalent in the private sector, with almost two-thirds of private-sector janitors earning low wages. Subcontracting, a widespread practice in the janitorial industry, has contributed to the high rates of regulatory violations that undermine janitors’ employment conditions, such as misclassification, wage theft, tax fraud, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment and assault.

Presently, over 700,000 Californian workers — primarily immigrant women and women of color — provide homecare for nearly three million older adults and people with disabilities. Researchers examined homecare in California by surveying 500 workers and 103 consumers, conducting in-depth interviews with workers and consumers, and reviewing homecare agencies and residential facilities for the elderly.

Lives & Livelihoods: California’s Private Homecare Industry in Crisis finds that the California homecare industry is facing critical issues that strain workers and consumers alike, amid growing demand that further intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other findings, the report notes how the lack of infrastructure in homecare leaves both consumers and workers struggling. Over half of consumers determined employment terms on their own or turned to their friends and family for guidance. Only 22% of workers reported ever taking paid sick leave. Nearly two-thirds of homecare workers did not earn enough to cover their daily expenses and 74% reported they did not have any type of personal retirement savings.

Many families need financial support through public investment in order to pay their homecare workers a living wage. Three quarters of consumers stated they would like to pay higher wages and 85% of consumers strongly supported a universal long-term care insurance program in California.

Meaningful and timely public investment in the state’s homecare workforce and infrastructure is imperative to the sustainability of the industry over the next decade and beyond. Report authors provide the following recommendations: 1) Make it easier for consumers to find care and workers to find fair employers 2) Formalize the industry and make workers rights real through education, tools, and increased enforcement efforts 3) Address the crisis of low wages, and 4) Increase public investment in long-term care to help consumers access and afford homecare and other long-term care.

The research brief suggests that worker centers are invaluable actors in the state's public workforce development system. Worker centers -- community-based organizations created by and for BIPOC and immigrant job seekers and workers in low-wage industries -- provide a comprehensive alternative to the status quo of workforce development through fostering leadership development, movement building, and systemic change. 

Essential Stories: Black Worker COVID-19 Economic Health Impact Survey finds that the current economic restructuring triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the Black jobs crisis in Southern California. With heightened unemployment, underemployment, and unsafe conditions for a workforce plagued by a long history of systemic racism, researchers find that it will take a decade to address these critical issues if state officials do not intervene sooner. This report is the first large-scale study of Black workers in Southern California, which is home to 60% of the Black population in the state. The report documents the challenges faced by nearly 2,000 Black workers in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego counties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other findings, the report notes close to 70% of Black workers who lost their jobs or were furloughed during the pandemic have not been called back to work. More than half of Black workers surveyed worked in essential or front line sectors pre-pandemic. As Black workers have navigated overlapping economic and health crises during the pandemic, there has been insufficient systemic support available and accessible to them. 71% of on-site workers were concerned about COVID-19 exposure on the job. A third of workers reported uncertainty that they could afford food in the next month. 90% percent of Black women surveyed had an increase in at-home and financial responsibilities during the pandemic, and many of their employers were inflexible in accommodating their needs. In response to the concerns of Black workers surveyed in the report and a subsequent exhaustive research analysis, the report offers the following key recommendations: 1) Long-term quality jobs, economic support, and COVID-19 recovery programming, 2) Black worker wellness support through targeted programming, 3) Direct workforce rights training and development programming. In order for the current economic restructure to lead to an equitable recovery, researchers emphasize the importance of amplifying the voices of Black workers. These recommendations have been further summarized in the report in context of regional, state, and federal labor policies. 

The fast-food sector is an integral part of the food sector in Los Angeles, employing 150,000 Angelenos in 2019 and comprising over a third of Los Angeles’s restaurant workers. Fast-Food Frontline: COVID-19 and Working Conditions in Los Angeles is based on 417 surveys and fifteen in-depth interviews with non-managerial fast-food workers in Los Angeles County conducted between June and October 2021. The study finds that fast-food workers in Los Angeles County are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19, in addition to facing difficult work conditions that became more acute during the pandemic. The report provides an in-depth portrait of COVID-19 safety compliance through the lens of fast-food workers themselves, the vast majority of whom are women and workers of color. Among other findings, the report finds that nearly a quarter of fast-food workers contracted COVID-19 in the last eighteen months, and less than half were notified by their employers after they had been exposed to COVID-19. Further, almost two-thirds of workers have experienced wage theft, and well over half have faced health and safety hazards on the job, amounting to injuries for 43% of workers. Researchers emphasize the urgency of implementing public policy solutions that are tailored to fast-food workers’ needs and strengthen fast-food workers’ voice in their industry. 

According to the evaluation report, despite attending different UC campuses, undocumented student experiences and sentiments on resource accessibility are universal. Students from different UC campuses expressed challenges and barriers to accessing resources due to social stigma, internalized guilt, inadequate outreach efforts, lack of funding, and the location of undocumented student centers on campuses.

To alleviate the challenges and disparities undocumented students face, report authors recommend: 1) Supporting undocumented students in the UC system by providing sufficient funds for undocumented student resources. 2) Allowing undocumented individuals to actively partake in the creation of resources for undocumented students. 3) Holding universities accountable for increasing outreach efforts to support undocumented students. 4) Providing professional development opportunities such as internships and fellowships specifically for undocumented students that are paid.

While many studies and publications on undocumented college student experiences are conducted and written by faculty, established professionals and researchers, this report was primarily authored by undocumented students to ensure that the voices of undocumented students were centered in report findings and recommendations.

A participatory focus group approach that asked undocumented undergraduate and graduate students to share their experiences was used for the report. The evaluation report is based on 2 rounds of focus groups and 23 participants, as well as campus resources, online UC open sources, and published information on the UC system. The report is meant to serve as a resource guide for students, faculty, and staff, and simultaneously provide feasible solutions to the current disparities in resources for undocumented students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and disparate impact on the lives of millions of people. In Los Angeles County, college campuses remained closed for more than a full academic year. Workers and learners juggled academic demands with the need to work for an income. As the pandemic persisted and colleges across the country continued to modify their reopening plans, the researchers of this study recognized the urgency of investigating the possible effects the crisis may have on workers’ and learners’ academic and job experiences. This study builds on existing knowledge concerning workers and learners by documenting how their education, employment, and life experiences inform their concerns and expectations for the return to campus and work. Developed by the 2021 Labor Summer Research Program student research teams, the research is based on 128 surveys and 29 interviews collected from Los Angeles public colleges and universities students in August 2021.

The study found that nearly all students agreed that flexibility in deadlines, office hours, and attendance should remain as they return to campus. They also wanted to see the practice of recorded class lectures continue. While schedule flexibility helped some students balance school and work, many were still forced to prioritize either school or work. Most students reported that their campus had a vaccine requirement and mask mandate—preventive measures that they were overall in favor of. In contrast, workers and learners reported that their workplaces had fewer safety requirements. Further, workers and learners faced barriers to financial stability and well-being. Returning to normal after a global pandemic will be a process filled with challenges, and report authors provide specific recommendations for improving conditions in the report.