Industry Research
Winning Construction Jobs for Local Residents: A User's Guide for Community Organizing Campaigns, lays out a step-by-step strategy for creating and keeping high-quality construction jobs for local residents, especially women and people of color.
Behind the Kitchen Door: Pervasive Inequality in New York's Thriving Restaurant Industry, a study conducted by the Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York (ROC-NY) in collaboration with the Brennan Center, the Urban Justice Center, and the Community Service Society. The Brennan center also contributed to a follow-up report: Dining Out, Dining Healthy: The Link Between Public Health and Working Conditions in New York City's Restaurant Industry.
Is Your Gourmet Grocery a Sweatshop? A Report on Working Conditions at Upscale Groceries in New York City, a report analyzing working conditions in New York City's gourmet groceries, conducted in collaboration with New York Jobs with Justice and Queens College Labor Resource Center.
Chart Book on Wages, Operating Costs, and Cost of Living for Taxicab Drivers in New York City, an analysis of wages and fare increase proposals in New York City's yellow cab industry, prepared for the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
Moving Hotels to the High Road: Strategies That Help Workers and Firms Succeed, a report on innovative practices in the hotel industry, prepared jointly with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. For an analysis of the role that unions play in the hotel industry, see The Coffee Pot Wars: Unions and Firm Restructuring in the Hotel Industry.
Reforming the Unemployment Insurance System: In the wake of the September 11th attacks, we conducted an innovative survey of 2,500 workers and found that the unemployment insurance system failed the majority of displaced New Yorkers. The study remains the only large-scale survey documenting the immediate impact of the World Trade Center tragedy on workers and their families.
In addition to policy reports, our research is disseminated through conference presentations and academic publications. Recent highlights include Low-Wage America: How Employers Are Reshaping Opportunity in the Workplace, and Divergent Paths: Economic Mobility in the New American Labor Market, both co-authored and co-edited by Annette Bernhardt, Deputy Director of the Poverty Program.