High Road Strategy Center in the News

The Working Wisconsin report examines the economy from the vantage point of how it affects workers. It is issued annually by the center, a nonprofit that researches and promotes solutions to social problems that focus on “shared growth and opportunity, environmental sustainability, and resilient democratic institutions as necessary and achievable complements in human development.”

UW-Madison labor economist and High Road Strategy Center associate director Laura Dresser discusses the group’s State of Working Wisconsin 2024 report on job numbers, wage growth and gender pay gaps.

As inflation calmed last year, Wisconsin workers’ buying power grew at a record rate, according to a new report from the High Road Strategy Center, a University of Wisconsin-Madison think tank. The center’s annual “State of Working Wisconsin” report shows what’s changed for workers of different races and genders in the last year.

It’s having a deep impact on the labor force. According to a 2023 report from High Roads Strategy Center, part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin’s women labor force participation dropped below 60% for the first time since the late 1980s.

“Our relative (workforce) advantage shrank quite substantially over the last two years,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of High Roads Strategy Center. “We know that child care has been in crisis, even before the pandemic. Our structures for taking care of kids tend to weigh heavily on women and on women’s work.”

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.