On June 16 and 17, 2014, the Labor Research and Action Network held their 4th annual conference at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. We were proud to participate and present a session entitled “Bargaining for the Common Good: The Role of Research in a Campaign to Fundamentally Alter Public-Sector Bargaining.”

This symposium focused on the role research is playing in our effort to redefine public-sector collective bargaining. We explained that the goal of the campaign is to create unified community-labor campaigns about common concerns and to bring common demands to the bargaining table. Public-sector collective bargaining will be a compression point in broader community-benefit campaigns.

Researchers have been involved in the conversations, grappling with the theoretical underpinnings of the campaign vision, providing research to contribute to building a common analysis of the moment and participating in strategy sessions around innovative solutions that broaden public-sector bargaining for the common good. More than these traditional roles for researchers, though, a part of the vision of Bargaining for the Common Good is to build the research capacities of community organizations and unions through increased funding for internal researchers and deepened partnerships with academic researchers.

The panelists for our session were:
• Joseph A. McCartin, Director, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, and Professor of History, Georgetown University
• Saqib Bhatti, Fellow, Nathan Cummings Foundation
• Connie M. Razza, Director of Strategic Research and Analytics, Center for Popular Democracy
• Dan Pedrotty, Director of Pensions and Capital Strategies, AFT