Tom Juravich
Professor
Professional Bio
Tom Juravich received a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1983 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, serving as Director from 1996 to 2007 and from 2016-2018.
Juravich studies work, workers and the labor movement. As an ethnographer, his exploration of the labor process began with his participant observation as a machine mechanic in a New England wire mill and has continued with research on nurses, call center representatives, industrial workers, as well as undocumented workers in the fish processing industry. He is currently researching wage theft and the work of undocumented workers in residential construction. He is also part of an NSF grant exploring the impact of artificial intelligence and computer based technology on the future of work.
Juravich’s research on the labor movement focuses on organizing and strategic campaigns. His quantitative research on organizing documented the importance of grassroots rank-and-file tactics for successful organizing in both the private and public sector. Beginning with his research on the Steelworkers’ campaign at Ravenswood, he had also written extensively about union strategic campaigns. He teaches strategic corporate research and campaigns to a variety of union, community and environmental groups and is the designer and webmaster of www.StrategicCorporateReseach.org a comprehensive website for conducting corporate research in the U.S. and Canada.
Juravich consults with a variety of unions in the U.S. and Canada including the Association of Flight Attendants, Carpenters, AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Nurses Association, Communication Workers of America, United Steelworkers, United Food and Commercial Workers, Hospital Employees Union (Canada), Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canadian Labour Congress and others. He serves as Chair of the Labor and Labor Movements section of the American Sociological Association and is on the editorial boards of the New Labor Forum and the Labor Studies Journal. A singer and songwriter, Juravich’s latest recordings include Altar of the Bottom Line and Tangled in Our Dreams (with Teresa Healy).
Juravich teaches Labor Research, Work and the Labor Process, Labor and Work in the United States, Working Class and Labor Movement Cultures, and Issues and Debates in the Contemporary Labor Movement.
Selected Publications
Books:
Kerrissey, Jasmine, Eve Weinbaum, Clare Hammonds, Tom Juravich and Dan Clawson (equal contributions). 2019. Labor in the Time of Trump. Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press.
Juravich, Tom. 2009. At the Altar of the Bottom Line: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Juravich, Tom (ed.). 2007. The Future of Work in Massachusetts. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Juravich, Tom and Kate Bronfenbrenner. 1999. Ravenswood: The Steelworkers’ Victory and the Revival of American Labor. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Juravich, Tom, William F. Hartford, and James R. Green. 1996. Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Juravich, Tom. 1985. Chaos on the Shop Floor: A Worker's View of Quality, Productivity and Management. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Articles and Book Chapters:
Juravich, Tom. 2020. “Bread and Roses: The Evolution of a Song, Labor Songbooks, and Union Culture,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, Vol. 17 (2), 81-99.
Juravich, Tom. 2018. “Constituting Challenges in Differing Arenas of Power: Workers’ Centers, the Fight for $15 and Union Organizing,” Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 43 (2), 104-117.
Juravich, Tom. 2017. “Fight for $15: The Limits of Symbolic Power,” Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 42(4), 394-398.
Juravich, Tom. 2017. “Artifacts of Workers’ Knowledge: Finding Skill in the Closing and Restructuring of a Furniture Manufacturer,” Ethnography, Vol 18 (4), 493-514.
Juravich, Tom. 2016. “Reviewing Labor Highlights and Lowlights,” New Labor Forum, Vol. 2 (May), 80-87.
Juravich, Tom, Dan Dashnaw, Andrea Greenberg, and Nate Johnson. 2014. “How a Strike Was Won: Rebuilding Union Capacity and Strategic Leverage in a Utility Workers Local,” Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 39, No. 3 (September), 202-222.
Juravich, Tom. 2013. “Tacit Skills,” in Vicki Smith (ed.), Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia. New York: Sage.
Juravich, Tom, and Corinn Williams. 2011. “After the Immigration Raid: Evaluating the Campaign to Support Undocumented Workers in New Bedford, Massachusetts,” Working USA, Vol. 14, No 2 (June), 201–224.
Juravich, Tom. 2011. “Representing Labor: Labor Posters and the American Labor Movement,” Work and Occupations, Vol. 38, No. 2 (March), 143–148.
Juravich, Tom. 2007. “Beating Global Capital: A Framework and Method for Union Strategic Corporate Research and Campaigns,” in Kate Bronfenbrenner (ed.), Global Unions: Challenging Global Capital through Cross-Border Campaigns. Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press, 16–39.
Juravich, Tom, and Kate Bronfenbrenner. 2006. “Significant Victories: An Analysis of First Contracts in Public and Private Sectors,” in Richard Block et al. (eds.), Justice on the Job: Perspectives on the Erosion of Collective Bargaining in the United States. Kalamazoo, MI: Upjohn, 87–115.
Juravich, Tom, and Kate Bronfenbrenner. 2003. "Out of the Ashes: The Steelworkers' Global Campaign at Bridgestone/Firestone," in William N. Cooke (ed.), Multinational Companies and Transnational Workplace Issues. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 249–268.
Juravich, Tom, and Kate Bronfenbrenner. 1998. “Preparing for the Worst: Organizing and Staying Organized in a Changing Public Sector Climate,” in Kate Bronfenbrenner et. al. (eds.), Organizing to Win, Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press, 261–282.
Bronfenbrenner, Kate, and Tom Juravich. 1998. “It Takes More Than House Calls: Organizing to Win with a Comprehensive Union-Building Strategy” in Kate Bronfenbrenner et. al. (eds.), Organizing to Win, Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press, 19–36.
Recent Grants
Beverly Woolfe, Andrew Lan, Shlomo Ziberstein, Tom Juravich and Ina Ganguli. “A Framework for Diagnosis, Recommendation and Training in Continuous Workforce Development,” National Science Foundation, September 2019 – present, $980.000
Tom Juravich. “Wage Theft in Residential Construction,” North Atlantic Council of Carpenters. September 2019 - present, $35,000.