Labor Market and Industry Studies

Chris King presents at ILO Centenary Workshop

May 21, 2019 Leave a Comment

Senior Research Scientist Dr. Chris King was invited to present research at the International Labour Organization‘s Centenary Workshop “Debating the Future of Work: Challenges and Prospects” in Sheffield, England on May 28-29, 2019. On the second day of the workshop, he will be joined by Jason Heyes (Centre for Decent Work, University of Sheffield, UK) and Ryuichi Yamakawa (Central Labour Relations Commission and University of Tokyo, Japan) to discuss Governance, Labour Administration, and Social Dialogue. Topics addressed in the presentation include:

Changes in the world have created new challenges for labour adminstration bodies, such as labour inspectorates and public employment services.
How have they responded to these challenges?
How might labour administration be more effective?
What role can social dialogue play in ensuring effective labour governance and inclusive economic growth?

The presentation was made possible with support from the ILO. It has benefited from discussions with colleague Burt Barnow from George Washington University and sources currently or formerly with the US Department of Labor.

L to R: Ludek Rychly (ILO program director), Burt Barnow, Jason Heyes, and Chris King

ASPIRE Program Impact Evaluation Services

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince PhD
Sponsor(s):	Decision Information Resources, Inc via BakerRipley
Project Duration:	January 2019 – June 2020
Description:	BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers, Inc.) launched ASPIRE in early 2016 as a workforce development program designed to support underemployed workers in the Houston, Texas area to successfully move from low-wage jobs to living-wage, middle-skill jobs that provide financial stability and contribute to the region’s economic growth. Decision Information Resources, Inc. (DIR) is a Houston-based minority-owned research and evaluation firm that has been involved in evaluating workforce development programs over the full course of its 34-year history. An impact evaluation of ASPIRE will focus on comparing outcomes for program participants with program non-participants in order to measure the effectiveness of program participation. BakerRipley indicates that the impact evaluation seeks to answer the broad research question: Are ASPIRE candidates’ lives better off? And if so, by how much? The specific questions to be addressed by this impact evaluation per the ASPIRE Evaluation Plan are: What are the effects of program participation on ASPIRE client outcomes? How do effects vary for different client populations? How does participation in specific service delivery types affect client outcomes? What are the causal mechanisms? (What explains the links between program participation and outcomes?)
Reports Available:

Building a Workforce Data Blueprint

March 4, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince PhD
Sponsor(s):	Michael and Susan Dell Foundation
Project Duration:	January 2019 – September 2019
Description:	The Ray Marshall Center will provide research support to the WinDDOWS project, funded by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and implemented by the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The goal of the WinDDOWS project is to develop a workforce data infrastructure implementation blueprint.
Reports Available:

Ray Marshall interviewed for The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers’ Video History Project

February 15, 2019 Leave a Comment

In 1999, The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers embarked on a video history project to develop a video library dedicated to creating a repository of oral histories of distinguished individuals who played a significant role or who had an opportunity to observe milestone events relating to labor and employment law. All of the full-length video interviews and transcripts are archived at Cornell University’s Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library.

On November 29, 2018, the College’s producer (Carol Rosenbaum) and crew videotaped an interview with Former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall at the Center. Ana Avendano, Vice President of Labor Engagement for United Way Worldwide, interviewed Secretary Marshall, who spoke animatedly for 4 hours, and never seemed to tire! An excerpt from the interview can be seen below.

Interview topics included:

His childhood in the orphanage
The role of the Labor Secretary
His role in President Carter’s policy-setting
Ensuring OSHA worked as it should
Management attitudes towards safety and health regulations
Programs he developed to assist women and minorities entering the workforce in large numbers for the first time – especially those who wanted to work in male-dominated industries (like coal mining)
Outreach apprenticeships and affirmative action
His efforts to bring African-Americans into construction apprenticeship programs
International matters under Carter
His involvement in international work, including pulling the United States out of the International Labour Organization (because of a disagreement with the Russians)
His work on immigration, including during the Carter administration and with the AFL – CIO 30 years later
The role independent trade unions play in a democracy – and how authoritarian governments are the enemy of labor movements
Strikes during his tenure
Labor unions today
President Trump’s policies

You can view the transcript of the full interview here , and a summary of the transcript can be viewed here. Credit for the video excerpt, transcript, and transcript summary go to The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Central Texas Talent HUB

January 28, 2019 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Greg Cumpton, PhD
Sponsor(s):	Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and Lumina Foundation
Project Duration:	January 2018 – December 2018
Description:	Many former college entrants interrupt their education prior to completing their degree, either dropping out completely or later returning to college. These non-completing individuals have college experience, familiarity with the application process, college credits, and knowledge of course enrollment procedures. These individuals represent a source of ready and readily accessible potential workers to whom the region could support to re-enter and complete college, increasing the labor pool of those possessing critical skills and knowledge needed in the local labor market. With direct contact information collected while in college and a repository of information about them, the Austin community intends to target this population for re-enrollment through advertising and other outreach efforts. Researchers seek to examine stop-out patterns, barriers leading to stop-out behaviors, and assess potential solutions to re-enroll students, eventually measuring the extent to which these efforts increased the number and share of individuals returning to and completing college.
Reports Available:

RMC joins Workers Defense Project for Future of Work in Texas symposium

October 25, 2018 Leave a Comment

On October 23-24, 2018, the Ray Marshall Center joined the Workers Defense Project (WDP) and the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University to bring together scholars, funders, policymakers, community organizations, labor unions, and workers to discuss the challenges facing working people in Texas and analyze potential solutions to these challenges. The first day of the symposium on Oct. 23rd was held at the Bass Lecture Hall at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Among others, panel speakers for the first session titled “Future Trends in Texas Labor” included RMC’s Dr. Ray Marshall and Dr. Heath Prince, and the LBJ School’s Peniel Joseph provided the keynote address “Martin Luther King Jr., the Dignity of Labor, and the Future of American Democracy” during the second session. The event continued on Oct. 24th at the WDP offices for the final session “Emerging Solutions Across the South.” Funding for the event was generously provided by the Ford Foundation.

Talent Metric Evaluation (Oregon Talent Council)

August 8, 2017 Leave a Comment

Principal Investigator:	Heath J. Prince, PhD
Sponsor(s):	TIP Strategies
Project Duration:	May 2017 – August 2017
Description:	The Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will partner with TIP Strategies in the creation of an evaluation methodology for the Oregon Talent Council (OTC) that relies on new and innovative ways to measure the impact of talent investment in Oregon, and that can accurately and consistently track outcomes of interest. The project is composed of the following activities, divided into two phases: Phase 1 will develop a metrics methodology for OTC-related investments—how to measure investments in the niches that the Talent Council has identified as gaps. While the methodology will show how OTC metrics applies to an overall talent development framework, it will not develop detailed metrics for education and workforce investments controlled by other state agencies. Phase 2 will seek to develop a methodology for identifying key measures (approximately 5-7) by which aspects or desired outcomes of talent development could be benchmarked against other states. The primary purpose of the methodology for this phase is to establish a baseline to understand Oregon’s relative position in desired talent outcomes and be able to track the relative state’s progress over time.
Reports Available:

Ray Marshall meets with organizers on comprehensive immigration reform

March 22, 2017 Leave a Comment

With immigration reform being front and center these days, Dr. Marshall has responded to several requests since the election from print and broadcast media to discuss immigration-related issues. In addition, he is consulting with a coalition of labor and other organizations who have reached out to him to help craft a plan for comprehensive immigration reform. Two recent meetings hosted by Dr. Marshall in Austin, TX, brought together members of the AFL-CIO, United Way Worldwide, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Economic Policy Institute to delve deeper into the issues.

The first meeting was held on Wednesday, 3/15, and included Jon Hiatt, Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, and Ana Avendaño, Vice President of Labor Participation at United Way Worldwide.

The second meeting was held on 3/17 and included Daniel Costa, Director of Immigration Law and Policy Research at EPI; Naomi Tsu, Deputy Legal Director of the Immigrant Justice Program at SPLC; Shannon Lederer, Director of Immigration Policy at the AFL-CIO; and Susan Marshall, lecturer at Concordia University.