Andrew Rock

Andrew Rock is a Master of Public Policy student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, focusing on labor and employment policy. Prior to starting the MPP program, he worked at MDRC — a social policy research organization based in New York City. He currently works at the UCLA Labor Center as a researcher. He is pursuing a career in strategic research for unions or in labor enforcement for government agencies. 

Andrew is working on this project alongside students Jack Kearns, Gloria Magallanes, Ana Rodriguez, and Sydney Smanpongse.

Project Overview

Our projet is focusing on the intersection of housing and labor. Our client, Unite Here Local 11 (UH11), has made the housing crisis central to their work, advancing a range of strategies to make housing more affordable, stable, and proximate to work for its members and the rest of the working poor. The project’s research questions include: How can UH11 advance initiatives to transition small hotels and motels into temporary, emergency, or permanent housing or addiction treatment centers in the Los Angeles metropolitan area? And how should UH11 structure initiatives to purchase housing that can be turned into cooperatives to be rented or owned by the union’s members in the Los Angeles metropolitan area?

Why is this topic, specifically, important to you?

I am committed to pursuing a career in the labor movement working for unions. This project provides an opportunity to study ways that unions can innovate to improve their members’ lives and to build union power.

Who are the partners involved in this project and how will you be working with them?

We will be working with Unite Here Local 11 to address housing issues impacting their members. This will involve leveraging available institutional data and member knowledge.

Victor Narro, Project Director at the UCLA Labor Center, and Gary Blasi, a public interest lawyer and affordable housing advocate, will be advisors on the project and help guide our research. 

How do you hope that this project will impact the field moving forward?

I believe this research is incredibly timely; union members across the country are facing housing challenges and, through their unions, are looking for ways to step in to fill the gap left by government and the private market. I hope we will develop well-founded recommendations for how unions can establish housing cooperatives and that our findings will actually inspire other unions to look into doing so.