Leslie Vasquez Guzman

Laura Dresser, a labor economist and associate director for the High Road Strategy Center, has studied these types of agreements in other cities. A good example, she said, is the deal the Milwaukee Bucks made for their new stadium. It included a living wage for stadium and entertainment district workers and a path to unionization.

Laura Dresser, a labor economist at the University of Wisconsin, recently co-authored a report about what a robust community benefits agreement can do for a community. She told KCUR that the Royals could learn a lesson from the community benefits agreement the Milwaukee Bucks signed when that NBA franchise built its new stadium.

Laura Dresser, a labor economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told WLRN that SB 256 appears to be stronger than Wisconsin’s law, and predicted that its impact might be more widespread and immediate.

The High Road program is an improvement compared to many other workforce programs, which often prioritize training people for jobs regardless of the quality, said Laura Dresser, the associate director of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She helped coin the term “high road” and served as a consultant to California’s workforce programs in 2017.

Low-wage workers have found it especially hard to afford higher housing costs, even before a spike in prices in 2022, explained Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center (formerly COWS, a left-leaning think tank) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Laura Dresser, associate director of the left-leaning COWS economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said state policies like Act 10 and Wisconsin’s “right to work” law have played a major role in the decline.

Union membership in the state hovered between 215,000 and 230,000 from 2015 through 2021. 

That makes it hard to tell if the membership gains in the new data reflect actual membership increases or a correction after an under-estimate last year, said Laura Dresser, associate director of the COWS economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In the 2023 State of Working Wisconsin report, the High Road Strategy Center (formerly COWS) found that Wisconsin workers experienced strong job growth and low unemployment. However, most workers’ wages didn’t grow fast enough to stay ahead of high inflation. Guest host Bert Zipperer talks author of the report Laura Dresser to help us understand the state of labor as we kick off the new year.

“So, that $7.25 really matters, but it’s less binding today than it was in the past,” said Dresser. “But for the workers who really have those constraints on opportunity because of their concerns about immigration status, concerns about physical mobility – employers can really take advantage of that.”