Janice R. Fine

Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Chapter Member: New Jersey-Philadelphia SSN

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About Janice

Fine teaches and writes about innovative union and community organizing strategies; historical and contemporary debates regarding federal immigration policy; strategies for improving enforcement of the nation’s minimum wage and overtime laws; and issues related to privatization. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers in 2005; Fine worked as a community; labor and electoral organizer for more than twenty years and continues to work closely with the national labor; immigrant rights and student movements. In 2008; Fine was appointed by New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine to the state Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Immigrant Policy; where she helped formulate recommendations on a range of issues including strategies to strengthen labor standards enforcement as well as establishing a Commission on New Americans. She is currently an Executive Board member of the Labor and Employment Relations Association and Co-convener of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | Member Spotlight | In the News | Publications

Contributions

How Innovative Worker Centers Help America's Most Vulnerable Wage Earners

Key Findings Brief, August 2013

In the News

Quoted by Danielle Kurtzleben in "Sanders Campaign, Workers Ratify Union Contract," Vermont Public Radio Online, May 8, 2019.

Research discussed by Disha Raychaudhuri, in "Trump Says the Country is ‘Full.' But that isn’t True, Data Shows.," New Jersey Online, April 24, 2019.

Quoted by Noam Scheiber in "Missouri Voters Reject Anti-Union Law in a Victory for Labor," The New York Times, August 7, 2018.

Quoted by Jacquie Lee in "Hotel Worker Pact in New Jersey Features Novel Benefits," Bloomberg News, April 16, 2018.

Guest on NPR: All Things Considered , February 17, 2018.

Quoted by Carly Ryan in "Congressional Candidate and Alum Unionizes Campaign Staff," Michigan Daily , February 14, 2018.

Quoted by Josh Eidelson in "Campaign Workers Unionize Just in Time for Midterm Elections," Bloomberg Politics, February 12, 2018.

Quoted by Steven Greenhouse in "Fast-Food Workers Claim Victory in a New York Labor Effort," New York Times, January 9, 2018.

Quoted by David Matthau in "NJ Used to Have More Immigration than Today," New Jersey 101.5, June 29, 2017.

Quoted by David Matthau in "Latino and Asian Immigrants Pump Nearly $100 Billion into NJ Economy," New Jersey 101.5, June 26, 2017.

Quoted by Melissa Sanchez in "Chicago Needs to Better Enforce Labor Ordinances, Aldermen and Advocates Say," Chicago Reporter, February 23, 2017.

Opinion: "OT Work Deserves OT Pay," Janice R. Fine, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 11, 2015.

Quoted by in "Advocates for Workers Raise the Ire of Business," New York Times, January 16, 2014.

Research discussed by Steven Greenhouse, in "AFL-CIO Had Plan to Add Millions of Nonunion Members," New York Times, September 6, 2013.

Opinion: "OpinionNation: Immigration Activists and Experts on Their 'Dealbreakers' on Immigration Reform," Janice R. Fine (with Sarahi Uribe, Kica Matos, and and Ai-jen Poo), The Nation, April 15, 2013.

Opinion: "Debating Labor's Future: Union Leaders Weigh In on the Future of the AFL-CIO," Janice R. Fine, The Nation, July 14, 2005.

Opinion: "Going Public: New Directions for Campaign Finance Reform," Janice R. Fine (with David Donnelly and Ellen S. Miller), Boston Review, April 1, 1997.

Publications

Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream (Cornell University Press and the Economic Policy Institute, 2006).

Identifies 137 worker centers – organizations that help low-wage workers gain access to social services; advocate for their own civil and human rights; and organize to improve wages, working conditions, neighborhoods, and public schools – in more than eighty cities, suburbs, and rural areas in thirty-one states. Makes the case that worker centers serve not only as organizing laboratories but also as places where immigrants and other low-wage workers can participate in civil society, tell their stories to the larger community, resist racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, and work to improve their political and economic standing.