Join us in exploring the social and economic organization of work and its transformation, with a focus on vulnerable workers and an eye toward policy changes that better protect individuals and families.
Areas of focus
Carework and the potential for building a care policy infrastructure
Protecting workers as businesses push toward gig work and on-demand scheduling
New directions for the labor movement, worker voice, and worker activism in unexpected places
How the increasing number of immigrants, women, and people of color in low-wage and precarious jobs can be better represented and heard
For more background information about this theme, check out our resource list, which will point you to relevant podcasts, books, articles, and organizations.
2022-23 Wayne Morse Chair
Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist at Boston College whose research focuses on work, consumption, and climate change. Her most recent book is a collaboration titled After the Gig: how the sharing economy got hijacked and how to win it back (2020), which won the Porchlight Management and Workplace Culture Book of the Year. Schor’s previous books include the national best-seller The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1992) and The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need (1998). Schor is a former Guggenheim Fellow and has earned many awards and prizes, including the 2014 American Sociological Association’s award for Public Understanding of Sociology. Schor is a cofounder of the Center for a New American Dream, the South End Press, and the Center for Popular Economics. She previously taught at Harvard for 17 years.
2021-22 Visitors and Affiliates
2021-22 Events
5:00–6:30 p.m.
This event is subject to UO COVID guidelines; refer to the UO COVID-19 Resource page for more details. Please register for this event to be notified of any event changes. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube. Recently named one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine, C. Nicole Mason is the president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).
For the past two decades, Mason has spearheaded research on issues relating to economic security, poverty, women’s issues, and entitlement reforms; policy formation and political participation among women, communities of color; and racial equity. Prior to IWPR, Mason was the executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
At the start of the pandemic, she coined the term she-cession to describe the disproportionate impact of the employment and income losses on women. Mason is the author of Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey from Nothing to Something in America (St. Martin’s Press) and has written hundreds of articles on women, poverty, and economic security.
This event is the annual lecture for the Wayne Morse Center's Margaret Hallock Program for Women's Rights and is part of the Wayne Morse Center's 2021-23 theme, Making Work Work. It is also part of the University of Oregon's African American Workshop and Lecture Series, which is sponsored by the Office of the President and coordinated by the Division of Equity and Inclusion. Cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society.
5:00–6:30 p.m.
Featuring Sarita Gupta, vice president of the Ford Foundation and 2021-22 Wayne Morse Chair.
What will labor organizing look like in the future? Gupta answers this question by describing not only how working people can improve their wages and working conditions, but how they can exert real power over many more aspects of their lives. Gupta will consider the central role that collective bargaining must play in the renewal of diverse communities and our democracy.
As vice president of the Ford Foundation, Gupta oversees all US programs. Gupta has more than 20 years of experience working to expand people’s ability to come together to improve their workplaces, their communities, and their lives by creating solutions to the problems they face. She has deep expertise in policy advocacy, organizing, and building partnerships across the workers’ rights and care movements, having served as the executive director of Jobs With Justice and codirector of Caring Across Generations. She is a nationally recognized expert on the economic, labor, and political issues affecting working people, and is widely acknowledged as a key leader and strategist in the progressive movement.
This event is part of the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics 2021-23 theme, Making Work Work. It is cosponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society.
Join us in person for this free event or watch the livestream.
6:30–8:00 p.m.
This event will bring together the presidents of each of the University of Oregon's major unions to discuss the challenges and possibilities facing a largely unionized university workplace, now and in the future, with Wayne Morse Chair Sarita Gupta. Participants will include Avinnash Tiwari, United Academics of the University of Oregon; Stephanie Prentiss, Service Employees International Union 503; and Mel Keller, Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation. Bob Bussel, recently retired Director of the Labor Education and Research Center, will moderate.
This event is part of the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics 2021-23 theme, Making Work Work. It is cosponsored by United Academics of the University of Oregon (AAUP/AFT Local 3209, AFL-CIO).
12:15–1:45 p.m.
This panel brings together representatives from city and county government as well as community partners to discuss the planning and enforcement of regulations surrounding unsheltered homelessness and informal housing in Lane County. Through this conversation we aim to identify shared obstacles, concerns, and experiences of officials and organizations charged with addressing this pressing social problem.
Panelists Claire Herbert is an assistant professor of sociology at UO and a 2021-22 Wayne Morse Center Resident Scholar. Her research focuses on law, housing, incarceration, and urban sociology. Her first book is about the informal use of property in Detroit, Michigan, including squatting, scrapping, and gardening. Her current research is on informal housing in Lane County.
Heather Sielicki works for Everyone Village, a planned shelter development with a mutual benefit model located on the Rexius property in west Eugene that has been approved by Eugene City Council to host up to 60 units of shelter. She has worked for Carry it Forward and White Bird Clinic and currently serves as a Eugene human rights commissioner and vice-chair for Lane Coalition for Organizations Active in Disaster Response.
Sarai Johnson is the Lane County housing and shelter strategist. She coordinates efforts among the city, county, and local service providers to avoid duplication of work on the shared goal of housing for everyone. Her assignment is to create a new path forward by working together – among government agencies and other service providers who help people who are unhoused.
Chris Skinner has been chief of the Eugene Police Department since April 2018. His public safety career began in Monmouth, Oregon. He came to Eugene from Richland, Washington, where he was appointed chief of police in 2011.
This event is part of the Wayne Morse Center's 2021-23 theme, Making Work Work.
7:00–8:30 p.m.
A panel discussion with Oregon Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, Jessica Giannettino Villatoro, and Sarita Gupta. Join in person or via livestream.
Jessica Giannettino Villatoro is the political and legislative director at Oregon AFL-CIO. She has spent the better part of a decade building power for working people through local and state advocacy, and overseeing electoral and ballot measure campaigns.
Sarita Gupta is vice president of the Ford Foundation and 2021-22 Wayne Morse Chair. Gupta has more than 20 years of experience working to expand people’s ability to come together to improve their workplaces, their communities, and their lives by creating solutions to the problems they face. She has deep expertise in policy advocacy, organizing, and building partnerships across the workers’ rights and care movements, having served as the executive director of Jobs With Justice and codirector of Caring Across Generations.
Val Hoyle was elected in 2018 as Oregon’s statewide labor commissioner. Previously, she was an Oregon state representative and house majority leader. Hoyle spent 25 years working in the bicycle industry in domestic and international trade.
noon
Join in person or via livestream
The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, co-authored by Sarita Gupta and Erica Smiley, was published by Cornell University Press on April 15. The two authors will talk about the origin and goals of the book. Commentary by Margaret Hallock.
Sarita Gupta is vice president of the Ford Foundation and 2021-22 Wayne Morse Chair. Gupta has more than 20 years of experience working to expand people’s ability to come together to improve their workplaces, their communities, and their lives by creating solutions to the problems they face. She has deep expertise in policy advocacy, organizing, and building partnerships across the workers’ rights and care movements, having served as the executive director of Jobs With Justice and codirector of Caring Across Generations. Margaret Hallock retired in 2015 as the founding director of the University of Oregon’s Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. She formerly directed the UO Labor Education & Research Center (LERC). Hallock is a Ph.D. economist who taught economics and worked for Service Employees International Union 503 where she led the struggle for pay equity for women workers. She served as a policy advisor to Governor Ted Kulongoski for labor, revenue and workforce development. She serves on the boards of Sponsors, a reentry organization, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. Erica Smiley is the executive director of Jobs With Justice, where she has been spearheading strategic organizing and policy interventions for nearly 15 years. Smiley has served in numerous leadership capacities at Jobs With Justice, including senior field organizer for the southern region and organizing director. She is a WILL Empower Fellow – a joint project of Rutgers University and Georgetown University – and is currently co-authoring a book on bargaining and working people democracy with Sarita Gupta. Part of the Wayne Morse Center's 2021-23 theme, Making Work Work.