All the talk in the labor market has been “The Great Resignation,” where despite conventional economics, a record number of people have left and are leaving their jobs during a labor shortage.

So this week, we thought it would be most useful to share two sources who are deeply connected to unions and labor movements in the U.S. and abroad. Hopefully, these individuals can help reporters and readers understand ethical labor practices and collective bargaining in the workplace.

Anibel Ferus-Comelo is a faculty member at the Goldman School of Public Policy and director of Community Engaged Academic Initiatives at the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

She has trained labor leaders through the Organizing Academy of the British Trades Union Congress and independent unions in India. Through scholarship and advocacy, she has supported the rights of low-wage, migrant workers in the U.S., the U.K. and India within unions and community-based workers’ centers, and has been a consultant researcher and policy analyst for international agencies, including the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

Brenda Muñoz is the deputy chair of the University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center. As an organizer, strategic researcher, policy analyst and manager, she has over 15 years of experience working with labor unions and organizations in the nonprofit, public and private sectors in the U.S. 

Prior to the Labor Center, she served as a bridge between public and private sector union leaders and Kaiser Permanente leaders on health benefit and worker well-being issues. As a staff member at the Berkeley-based nonprofit Labor Project for Working Families, she conducted outreach and education among union members around work and family balance issues.

Other sources of interest this week.

The DOJ indicted two men believed to be involved in ransomware attacks in coordination with the crime circle, REvil. 
 
Delaram Kahrobaei is the university dean for research at the City University of New York, tenured professor at computer science and mathematics departments at Queens College and doctoral faculty in computer science at the CUNY Graduate Center. Previously, she was chair of cyber security in the department of computer science at the University of York and the director of York Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security. Kahrobaei is an expert on cybersecurity, cryptography, information security and data science.

Sources of the Week on the news

Read:

• Congratulations to Nalini Nadkarni, who received the 2021 NAT award from Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona in Spain. 
• Mustafa Santiago Ali wrote an opinion in The Hill, “A clean energy economy is crucial for frontline communities”.
• U.S. News & World Reports featured Sarah Phillips’ research on how bilingual people effortlessly switch between two languages.
• Chi Chi Wu toldCBS MoneyWatch that improving accuracy in credit reports will benefit Black and Latinx consumers, whom the Consumer Financial Protection Agency finds are more likely to dispute transactions. 

Watch:

• Hua Hsu interviewed composer Terence Blanchard on his production of the 2021-2022 season of the Metropolitan Opera of New York for CBS News’ Sunday Morning.

Listen:

• Last week’s Source of the Week, Christelle Khalaf, was featured this past weekend on NPR’s All Things Considered. 
  
• Leah Wright Rigueur spoke with NPR’s All Things Considered about the recent state elections and the influence of Black conservatives.