ADVISORY / MEDIA AVAILABILITY
Topic: Labor expert available to provide analysis of President Obama’s executive orders on overtime, federal contractor minimum wage
Expert: Tom Juravich, professor of labor studies and sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst -- http://www.umass.edu/lrrc/
Available: Via phone or email; also available via satellite for TV segments from on-campus studio in Amherst, Mass.
Contact: Jared Sharpe – 413-545-3809 / jsharpe[at]admin.umass.edu
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Tom Juravich, professor of labor studies and sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is available for interview to discuss the executive order President Obama has signed directing the Labor Department to draft rules that would expand overtime pay eligibility to millions of American workers.
Juravich can comment on:
-- The employees across the country who would be affected by the new rules-- The impact the new rules could have on worker’s incomes and standard of living-- The potential impact of the new rules on businesses-- Why the President is using executive orders to put these rules – and recent rules pertaining to the minimum wage paid by federal contractors – into place-- The impact these new rules will have on the President’s call for Congress to increase the federal minimum wage to over $10/hr.
ABOUT TOM JURAVICH
Professor Tom Juravich received a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1984 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 1984 to 1993 he was on the faculty of the Department of Labor Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where he directed a workers' education program in the greater Philadelphia area. Juravich joined the UMass Labor Center in 1993, and from 1996 to 2007 served as Director of the Center. In 1995 he was part of a team that founded the Union Leadership and Administration (ULA) program, a limited-residency masters program for union officers, activists and staff, serving as its director from 1995 to 2007. His research interests include strategic corporate research and campaigns, work and the labor process, union organizing, and union and worker culture. In addition to numerous scholarly papers and journal articles, Juravich is the author of four books, including At the Altar of the Bottom Line: The Degradation of Work in the 21st Century (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor (ILR/Cornell University Press, 1999), Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions (University of Massachusetts Press, 1996) and Chaos on the Shop Floor: A Worker's View of Quality, Productivity, and Management (Temple University Press, 1985).
Juravich is on the editorial boards of the New Labor Forum and has been active in the Massachusetts Society of Professors/MTA/NEA, and was a founding member of Local 1000 of the American Federation of Musicians. A singer and songwriter, Juravich's albums Altar of the Bottom Line (2007) and Tangled in Our Dreams (with Teresa Healy) (2006) were released by Finnegan Music. Professor Juravich teaches Introduction to Labor Studies, Labor Research, Work and the Labor Process, Labor and Work in the United States, Working Class and Labor Movement Cultures, and Advanced Corporate Research. A link to his comprehensive set of resources for conducting corporate research and strategic campaigns in the U.S. and Canada can be found here.
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