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TOP STORY

Faith Leaders Embark on an Eight-Day Pilgrimage to Protest ICE Detentions

On September 29, faith leaders embarked on an eight-day 96.5 mile journey from the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County to the Downtown Los Angeles Federal Building to protest the treatment of immigrants targeted by the President’s punitive immigration enforcement agenda. The pilgrimage was organized by the faith-based social justice coalition Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), Nefesh, a Jewish spiritual and outreach community, and Sacred Resistance, the advocacy ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Capital & Main documented the first leg of their journey, which concluded this Tuesday, through a series of photographs and anecdotes in this article.

Capital & Main

Jeremy Lindenfeld

LABOR LAW

California Governor Signs Array of Employment Bills, Vetoes Menopause Protected Category Bill

Ogletree Deakins

Christopher W. Olmsted

WORKER HEALTH AND SAFETY

California Prepares to Ban Quartz Countertop Production

The New York Times

Rebecca Davis O’Brien

HIGHER EDUCATION

Stanford RAs withdraw union petition citing concerns over Columbia precedent

The Stanford Daily

Emerson Prentice and Yeva Allyn

HIGHER EDUCATION

Labor Watch: Strikes Begin to Simmer While Contracts Remain Stalled



Inside HigherEd

Emma Whitford

IRLE NEWS

UCLA IRLE Celebrates its 80th Anniversary

This week, the UCLA IRLE kicked off its 80th anniversary programming with the release of a new webpage and history timeline. Since 1946, the IRLE has shaped labor policy and practice, sustained the vitality of unions and community organizations and prepared researchers and organizers for impactful careers. Today, the IRLE supports a robust group of research, education and public engagement programs including the UCLA Labor Center, the Department of Labor Studies, the Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program (LOSH) and the Human Resources Round Table (HARRT). The IRLE also hosts research initiatives including the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative (EMRI), the Memory Work Research Initiative (MWRI) and the Strategic Research Lab.

POWER FROM THE PAST!

Beginning in fall 2026, the Power from the Past weekly series highlights selections from IRLE's 80th anniversary timeline. Supported by the Memory Work Research Initiative (MWRI), the timeline commemorates historic milestones at the Institute, UCLA and the Los Angeles community.

1946 – Institute of Industrial Relations (IIR) established

This week, the UCLA IRLE launched its 80th anniversary! Our new Power From The Past series brings you a selection from IRLE’s historical timeline each week.

Paul Dodd was the founding director of the IRLE, which opened in 1946 as the “UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations.” By the end of World War II, working people and their organizations had transformed the United States. Unionized workers now negotiated their pay and working conditions with some of the largest corporations in the world. They also became a force in the corridors of power in Washington, as well as Sacramento. The creation of the Institute of Industrial Relations underscored the need for new forms of economic and policy knowledge that reflected these monumental changes.

Visit irle.ucla.edu/80th/timeline/ for more moments of IRLE, UCLA, and Los Angeles history

UPCOMING IRLE EVENTS

TODAY! Prop 187 and Labor’s Fight for Immigrant Rights

Date and Time: Friday, October 9, 2026, 10-11:30 am PDT

Location: Virtual

Part one of the IRLE's "Meeting the Moment, Building the Movement" webinar series welcomes three veterans of the campaign to stop Proposition 187 to discuss how the campaign forged coalitions between immigrant rights and labor organizers, setting the stage for a historic shift in organized labor’s policy on undocumented workers.

Cristina Ramirez-Vazquez, former Regional Manager and International Vice President of Workers United, David Sickler, former Western Regional Director of AFL-CIO, and Joel Ochoa, labor and community organizer, will join in conversation. 

Next Friday! Labor Strategies to Defend Immigrant Worker Rights Today

Date and Time: October 16, 2026, 10-11:30 am PDT

Location: Virtual

Part two of the IRLE’s “Meeting the Moment, Building the Movement” series brings together three leaders at the forefront of labor and community responses to the current militarized federal immigration campaign in cities across the U.S. Facing the largest deportation campaign since the 1950s, labor unions and their members, alongside allies in the immigrant rights movement, are taking creative, nonviolent action to defend communities. 

David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW), Bernie Burnham, President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, and Kurt Petersen, Co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, will join the IRLE to share their insights as leaders of the movement.

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UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) advances labor research and education for workplace justice. Through the work of its units – the UCLA Labor Center, the Human Resources Roundtable, the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program (LOSH) and its academic program, UCLA Labor Studies – the Institute forms wide-ranging research and agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.