Professional Bio
Judith Stepan-Norris is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research centers on social movements; it has a predominant focus on the U.S. labor movement (workers, union density, union leadership, and union democracy), with other work on the Los Angeles renters’ movement.
Her historical work focuses on American unions affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) from the 1930s through the mid-1950s (Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions, Cambridge University Press) and on the organization of the United Automobile Workers Union at the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant (Talking Union, University of Illinois Press). Newly released work (with Jasmine Kerrissey) covers 115 years (1900-2015) of the US labor movement’s booms and busts within the changing economic, legal and political context (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/union-booms-and-busts-9780197539859?cc=us&lang=en&#). Industry-level information on changing workforce skill levels and demographics, employment arrangements (sub-contracting, contingent work, mass layoffs), strike levels, and unfair labor practice filings helps to explain differential outcomes within various periods. Other research analyzes unions’ and churches’ impact on their neighborhoods, the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer program, workplace networks, and the relevance of rival unionism for change in union density.
Her research has been recognized with awards from the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the University of California, Irvine. It has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the American Sociological Association, the UC Institute for Labor and Employment, and the University of California, Irvine.
At UCI, she served as Vice Provost for Academic Planning (2014-2019) and Chair of the UCI Academic Senate (2009-2010). She has worked with the UCI ADVANCE program to examine its efficacy in enhancing gender equity among the faculty and she served as the Social Science Equity Advisor (2012-2014) and as chair of the UC-wide Research Scholars Advisory Board for the ADVANCE PAID program (2012-2014).
For the discipline, she served as Co-Editor of Contemporary Sociology (2006-2008), Associate Editor of Social Problems (1999-2002), member of the ASA Publications Committee (2006-2008), Chair of the ASA Political Sociology Section (2012-2013), Co-founder and Chair of the ASA Labor and Labor Movements Section-In-Formation (2000, 2001), Member of the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) Publication Committee (1998-2000), Member of the PSA Program Committee (1996-1997), Member of the PSA Executive Council (1995-1997), and Program Chair of the PSA Annual Meeting (1994).