Welcome

Sara Gia Trongone

Welcome! I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. My research focuses on labor unions and political economy in the U.S., with a special focus on new worker organizing in industries with low union density and the politics of reproductive work (i.e., educating children, caring for the sick or elderly, feeding others, and other forms of gendered labor).

My research brings theory to bear on practical questions about how workers win social, economic, and political power and the conditions under which those wins spread or scale. I am working on two major projects at the moment: The first is a community-based research project (with my dear friend, Jelger Kalmijn) that explores trends in new labor organizing and the barriers workers face to forming unions. Second, I am adapting my dissertation about the lessons from Chicago’s vibrant post-recession labor movement into a book manuscript, “How to Build a Movement: Reproductive Politics & the People’s Struggle to Take Back Chicago After 2008.”

I received my PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before graduate school, I worked as a labor and community organizer in NYC. I’ve worn a number of different hats on regional campaigns over the years. Currently, I am a proud rank-and-file member of PRO-UAW Local 2322’s bargaining committee and an Advanced Organizer and Trainer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC). I will always have a fondness for social welfare campaigns and universal free school lunch. I love talking shop about how to build a multiracial and intersectional working-class movement.