- Sponsor
- Department of Psychology
- Speaker
- Dr. Johnnie Kallas, Assistant Professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations
- Views
- 31
- Originating Calendar
- Psychology General Calendar
The Psychology Department is excited to continue the First Friday Psychology-Beckman Colloquium Series for the 2026-2027 academic year, a monthly event designed to bring together members of the Department of Psychology, Beckman Institute, and beyond for engaging, cross-area conversations.
On the first Friday of each month, join us from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM for faculty-led lectures, panel discussions, and research spotlights that showcase the breadth and depth of work happening in psychological science at UIUC.
Join us on November 6 to hear from Dr. Johnnie Kallas, Assistant Professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations.
The continued erosion of union density and the inadequacies of federal labor law in the United States have led labor scholars to document and theorize the best practices for union revitalization. This study finds that the external environment, particularly the subnational institutional context, largely conditions union strategy to organize new groups of workers. The authors conduct a matched case comparison of two new unions - the California Fast Food Workers Union and the Union of Southern Service Workers - to understand how the external environment shapes union strategy. They find that ‘know-your-rights unionism' emerged in California largely due to the availability of political mechanisms to improve labor standards, whereas union organizers in the South practiced ‘direct-action unionism’ because they lacked institutional power and had no other choice. These findings emphasize that unions need to adapt to their external environment when making strategic choices, rather than adhering to a particular ideological perspective on union revitalization.