Gordon Lafer is a political economist writer who has served as Senior Labor Policy Advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and Labor and has a history of Labor Union activism. He has written widely on labor and employment policy issues [1] and is the author of the books The Job Training Charade [2] and The One Percent Solution. [3]
He is currently a professor in the Labor Education & Research Center at the University of Oregon and a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute. [4]
Gordon Lafer started his political work as an economic policy analyst in the Office of the Mayor in New York City under Mayor Ed Koch. [5]
He was one of the leaders of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization at Yale, which was on strike several times in the 1990s. [6] [7]
Lafer served as Research and Communications Director for the Federation of University Employees at Yale. [8]
He ran a hotel workers' campaign with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 142, in Hawaii, [9] [10] and wrote about the campaign in the magazine Dissent. [11]
At the University of Oregon, Lafer and mathematician Marie A. Vitulli led an effort to unionize faculty at the University of Oregon beginning in the spring of 2007. [12] This effort eventually led to the formation of the United Academics at the University of Oregon. [13]
He worked for ILWU Local 142, helping coordinate the boycott of the Pacific Beach Hotel, [14] which[ clarification needed ] was found guilty of multiple labor law violations in federal court. [15] After a ten-year struggle, the hotel unionized in 2013. [16]
Lafer has served as Senior Labor Policy Advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and the Workforce, [17] a position that made him the top congressional staff member responsible for upholding labor standards in international trade treaties, [18] and he has been called to testify as an expert witness before multiple state legislatures. [19] He was the primary Congressional staff person responsible for the Local Jobs for America Act, [20] a bill that would have created one million decently-paid jobs and restored essential public services that were cut during the Great Recession. The bill was introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce, but never became law. [21] [22]
Lafer is a member of the Scholars' Advisory Council of in the Public Interest, [23] a research and policy center promoting democratic control of public goods and services. [24]
He is the founding co-chair of the American Political Science Association's Labor Project, [25] and serves on the board of directors of the Shalom Hartman Institute, [26] a pluralistic center of research and education deepening and elevating the quality of Jewish life in Israel and around the world. [27]
As of 2023, Lafer was Vice Chair of the Eugene School District Board of Directors, to which he was elected in 2019. His term expired June 30, 2023, [28] as he lost his campaign for reelection in the May 16, 2023 Special District Election. [29]
Lafer is the author of the books The Job Training Charade and The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time. [30] [31]
Lafer's work has appeared in The Nation [32] and U.S. News & World Report [33] and has been featured in The Washington Post , [34] The New York Times , [35] Fortune magazine, [36] and other publications.