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Working Group Funding

The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies offers funding to research groups comprised of both scholars and labor/social justice activists. Working Groups receive seed money for projects likely to create meaningful collaborations between the Bridges Center and the larger labor community, and may receive support from the Center for up to three years.

Eligibility

Working group funding is available only to faculty in the History and Political Science Departments, to the Bridges Center’s Faculty Associates, and to other UW faculty who have previously received an award from the Center.

In addition, each working group must include at least one member of the Bridges Center’s Visiting Committee. This is a group of labor community leaders and activists that act in an advisory capacity to the Center. A working group can also include faculty and/or students from any accredited educational institution.

Group Products

Each working group must have a specifically defined project and project goal(s), and may produce publications (papers, books, pamphlets, etc.), audio-visual materials, a conference, or a set of educational activities.

Topics

Below is a list of possible topics. This list is neither exclusive nor exhaustive.

  • Democracy within unions
  • Workers and the law
  • Healthcare, occupational health, and the environment
  • Social welfare and insurance
  • Media and technology
  • Global affairs and international solidarity
  • Racial, ethnic, and gender equality
  • Local and regional union, ethnic, radical, and labor histories
  • Feminism and the labor movement
  • Union participation in electoral politics

Support

We offer three types of support:

  1. We will fund a graduate student assistant for one quarter per academic year
  2. We will pay for specific research costs up to $3,000 per year (with the expectation that this will be supplemented, if not supplanted, by outside funding)
  3. We will help the working groups identify and contact additional funding sources from which substantial monetary support might be forthcoming

Application Deadline

June 8, 2009

To Apply

Contact the Bridges Center for required application materials:

    Andrew Hedden, Program Coordinator
    Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies
    University of Washington
    Box 353530
    pcls@u.washington.edu


Current Working Groups

Below are the four working groups that are currently receiving support from the Center:

  • Union Democracy Re-Examined
  • Race, Radicalism and Labor
  • Race, Class, & Work-Life Balance: Exploring Intersectionality in the Domains of Work and Care
  • Labor, Knowledge, and the Economy
  • Waterfront Workers History Project