This volume investigates the rise in California's union membership and union density, a development that defied the national trend and explodes assumptions that the U.S. labor movement is in irreversible decline. This volume includes findings from the first comprehensive survey of the state’s union membership since the mid-1980s.

Preface and Acknowledgements
Ruth Milkman

Part I Unionization Trends in California

California Union Membership: A Turn-of-the-Century Portrait
Ruth Milkman and Daisy Rooks

The State of Organizing in California: Challenges and Possibilities
Kate Bronfenbrenner and Robert Hickey

Part II New Perspectives on Employment and Inequality

Immigrant Employment and Mobility Opportunities in California
Frank D. Bean and B. Lindsay Lowell

Unequal Opportunity: Student Access to the University of California
Isaac Martin, Jerome Karabel, and Sean W. Jaquez

Part III State and Local Labor Policy Initiatives

Innovations in State and Local Labor Legislation: Neutrality Laws and Labor Peace Agreements in California
John Logan

Living Wage Ordinances in California
Michael Reich

Recent Developments in California Labor Relations
Daniel J.B. Mitchell

About the Contributors

The State of California Labor is produced by the UC Institutes of Industrial Relations at UCLA and UC Berkeley. Subscriptions and single issues of the print edition can be ordered from the publisher, University of California Press. The contents of earlier volumes are also available in PDF:

• The State of California Labor 2004
• The State of California Labor 2002
• The State of California Labor 2001