LRAN Trains Scholars and Facilitates Research on Government Contracting Out

One of the key goals of LRAN is to connect scholars with practitioners in order for their research to be relevant to the lives of workers.

Last fall, the LRAN Initiatives Work Group decided to put this goal to practice through a project to fight privatization. Over the past year, LRAN has partnered with In the Public Interest (ITPI) to surface ongoing research needs related to privatization and responsible contracting, and to identify and cultivate scholars who could produce this research and serve as credible experts on the issues. On October 17-19, LRAN & ITPI held a training at the AFL-CIO in Washington, DC for faculty, union and nonprofit staff. Experts led workshops on analyzing costs, contract language, operations, public services, government oversight, and other key elements of government contracting out.

For those interested in accessing videos and materials from the training when they are made available, please contact Erin Johansson of Jobs with Justice, and provide your name, affiliation and title. To learn more about privatization research projects, contact Shar Habibi of ITPI. To get involved in the 2014 project of the LRAN Initiative Work Group, which will tackle another research topic of importance to worker campaigns, contact co-chairs Christian Sweeney of the AFL-CIO or Gordon Lafer of the University of Oregon.