Tag Archives: murphy

CWOP, Home

Comparative Studies in Cooperative Economies – EU and USA

By Rebecca Lurie

María Pilar Alguacil Marí, Professor of Financial and Tax Law at the University of Valencia, recently spent time at the Murphy Institute for Labor and Urban Studies/CUNY, where she has carried out various academic activities and taught two seminars.

The first seminar, “Academic Study of Cooperative Economics,” was held on April 2nd and dealt with the different methodological concepts around social economy and cooperatives, such as the nonprofit, or “third sector” approaches, as well as other emerging concepts: social enterprises, collaborative economy, and more. The relevance that these subjects have in the university studies in Spain and Europe was also explored. The seminar ended with a debate among the attendees, who described the situation around cooperative economic education at CUNY, and expressed the need to increase university training in cooperatives. Continue reading Comparative Studies in Cooperative Economies – EU and USA →

Home, Murphy News

Resident Leadership Academy Announced in Metro

This week, the Resident Leadership Academy, a program designed to “provide training and build leadership skills for residents interested in taking a more active role in civic life within their development and/or community” was featured in metro. The program, offered as a partnership amongst the Fund for Public Housing, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and the Murphy Institute, will offer course credit to NYCHA residents through the Murphy Institute, developing skills, knowledge and leadership potential among NYCHA residents.

From metro:

With 326 developments and more than 400,000 residents across the city, the New York City Housing Authority serves a large number of New Yorkers, but often, public housing is overshadowed by the city’s other for-the-public facilities like transit, parks, education and art.

That’s why, as part of NextGeneration NYCHA, the agency is launching its Resident Leadership Academy this month to empower its future from within. Continue reading Resident Leadership Academy Announced in Metro →

Home, Labor Studies, Murphy News

The Chief Features The Murphy Institute

The Chief-Leader is a New York City-based weekly newspaper focused on municipal government and civil servants, as well as issues affecting New York State and Federal employees. The most recent issue of the newspaper features an article about the Murphy Institute: “As Jobs’ Complexity Grows, Murphy Institute Helps Bridge Knowledge Gap: Union-Backed Center Polishes Skills, Broadens Education.” The article includes quotes from Henry Garrido (Executive Director of DC 37 and Murphy Advisory Board member), Ed Ott (Murphy Distinguished Lecturer) and several JSMI students.

From Henry Garrido:

“Over the next five years, 120,000 city workers will retire, and we really need the professional public employees that remain to be up to the challenges ahead.”

The article continues:

“To help weather the turbulence ahead, DC 37 is building on its long relationship with the City University of New York’s Murphy Institute. The institute was established in collaboration with city labor unions in 1984 at Queens College to serve the higher-education needs of working adults. It started with just 52 students, and today serves more than 1,500 who are enrolled in undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs. CUNY plans on elevating it to being one of the university’s schools by next fall.”

Check it out here.

Events, Home, New Labor Forum

Event: Building Bridges Across the Generation Gap (5/19)

Date: May 19th, 2017
Time: 4:30pm-7:30pm
Location: Murphy Institute, 25 W. 43rd St., 18th Floor

REGISTER HERE

Believe it or not, Millennials and Baby Boomers have much in common, especially when it comes to the changing U.S. political economy. Join us for an intergenerational happy hour discussion unpacking the impact of America’s fractured social safety net across generations.

It’s no secret that today’s young adult generation faces unprecedented financial insecurity. Compared to when Baby Boomers were young, Millennials (born 1980 and after) have lower incomes, less savings, and lower net worth. They are also disproportionately likely to be uninsured, underemployed, or unemployed, and many are saddled with unprecedented levels of student debt. Continue reading Event: Building Bridges Across the Generation Gap (5/19) →

Events, Home, Labor Studies, Murphy News, Urban Studies

Event: Immigration Politics in the Trump Era (5/11)

Date: May 11th, 2017
Time: 10am-6pm
Location: Murphy Institute, 25 W. 43rd St., 18th Floor

RSVP HERE

Co-sponsored by the Scholars Strategy Network and Murphy Institute

This all-day conference will assess the unfolding immigration crisis, highlighting the perspectives of labor unions, worker centers, community organizations, and local government. The Trump administration’s efforts to restrict immigration, expand deportations, thwart sanctuary cities, and intensify border enforcement mark dramatic shifts in immigration politics and policies. This event convenes a range of national and local experts and leaders to explore the implications of these national shifts, especially for local immigrant communities and the possibilities for resistance.

Program

10:00am: Introductions and coffee

10:30am-12:00pm: Background and Context

Speakers:

  • Muzaffar Chishti – Migration Policy Institute, Director of MPI’s office at NYU School of Law
  • Mae Ngai – Columbia University, Professor of History and Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies

Moderator: Ruth Milkman, CUNY Graduate Center & Murphy Institute

12:00-1:00pm: Lunch (Provided)

1:00-2:30pm: Labor Responses

Speakers:

  • Esther Lopez – United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, International Secretary-Treasurer
  • Eliseo Medina – Service Employees International Union, Former International Secretary-Treasurer
  • Gonzalo Mercado – National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), New York City Regional Coordinator, and Executive Director at La Colmena – Staten Island Community Job Center
  • Javaid Tariq – New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Co-Founder and Senior Staff
  • Modesta Toribio – Make the Road New York, Senior Organizer

Moderator: Ed Ott, Murphy Institute/CUNY, Distinguished Lecturer of Labor Studies

2:30-3:00pm: Break

3:00-4:30pm: Community and Local Government Responses

Speakers:

  • 
Anu Joshi – NY State Immigrant Action Fund, Deputy Director
  • Abraham Paulos – Families for Freedom, former Executive Director
  • Donna Schaper – Judson Memorial Church, Senior Minister
  • Monica Sibri – CUNY DREAMers, Founder, and New York Fellow at IGNITE National

Moderator: Els de Graauw, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Baruch College-CUNY

4:30-6:00pm: Closing Reception

Exciting Opportunities, Home, Labor Studies, Urban Studies

Fall Graduate Class: Economic Democracy Against Economic Crisis

Taught by Evan Casper-Futterman
With Guest Lectures by Dario Azzellini
This class will be cross-listed in the Masters Programs of both Labor and Urban Studies. Speak to your adviser about registration.
Monday nights at the Murphy Institute

In the 1950s, labor unions claimed membership in 35% of the workforce. Today, density of labor unions outside of government employees is 6.7%. This precipitous decline in the economic and political power of working people begs the question: who will act as the countervailing economic and political forces to capital and inequality in the 21st century? This course will identify and examine multiple forms of workers’ self-management and cooperative enterprises and institutions throughout history, both as a reaction to economic crisis and as a coherent vision for a humane and just society. The course explicitly approaches cooperatives and self-management not as an “alternative business model,” but as part of labor history and labor struggles. This reconnects the idea of cooperatives to their origins and shows the potential of cooperatives in putting forward different values for a more just and participatory politics, economics, and society.

Faculty:

Evan Casper-Futterman is a 3rd generation New Yorker living in the Bronx. He earned a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New Orleans in 2011, was a White House Intern in the Spring of 2012 in the Domestic Policy Council’s Office of Urban Affairs and a Research Fellow for the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Bloustein School of Urban Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, studying economic democracy and economic development. He is on the Board of Directors of the Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City (CEANYC). His writing has been published in The Lens and The Huffington Post, as well as the peer-reviewed Berkeley Planning Journal. He contributed a chapter in the edited volume, The Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas (2013).

Dario Azzellini, Murphy Institute visiting scholar, is a political scientist, lecturer at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, writer and filmmaker. He has published several books, essays and documentaries about social movements, privatization of military services, migration and racism, including An Alternative Labour History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy. His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary militancy, migration and racism, people’s power and self-administration, workers control and extensive case studies in Latin America.