High Road Strategy Center in the News

We welcome Laura Dresser, Associate Director, of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Peter Rickman, president, Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union to discuss the finding and key policy and organizing implications of a new High Road Center report, “From Community Benefits, to Collective Bargaining, and Back.”

Dresser is the associate director of the High Road Strategy Center, a think-tank that in-part looks at employment conditions in Wisconsin. But in the case of the Deer District, developers created a community benefits agreement ensuring certain rights for its future employees. That led to the creation of MASH — the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization, a labor union that represents these workers. A recent report from High Road Strategy Center details the benefits this union and agreement it has brought to its workers.

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.

Dresser is advocating for Kansas City to adopt a community benefits agreement, similar to one adopted in Milwaukee, that would hold the teams accountable to a set of measurable economic benefits. The teams missed a Feb. …

Laura Dresser is an economist at the University of Wisconsin and associate director of the High Road Strategy Center. She spoke with Up To Date’s Steve Kraske about her report on community benefits agreements and …

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.