Professor Tom Juravich
In the age of open data, Professor Tom Juravich says corporations are adept at gathering information, but activists and unionists in the progressive movement lag behind.
His upcoming workshop, entitled “Strategic Corporate Research” is intended to address that imbalance. The workshop will be held on April 22 and 23 on the Carleton University campus as part of the FPA Professional Institute.
“There’s no reason a union should be going into a bargaining session or an activist group challenging an environmental issue without knowing what that corporation does,” says Juravich, a Professor of Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts and Adjunct Research Professor at the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton. “This is a hands-on workshop that will introduce people to the primary documents and specialized databases about corporations that are publicly available.”
Juravich has been conducting and teaching strategic corporate research for unions, community-based organizations and academic courses for more than 20 years. He says the public information on corporations is “stunning”.
His workshop will equip participants with corporate research skills that may be used for organizing, collective bargaining, and community campaigns, as well as academic research.
“This will give progressives the tools they need to be effective in bargaining with major firms, beginning with what to ask and where to find it,” says Juravich.
Professor Juravich is the creator of StrategicCorporateResearch.org, a comprehensive web site for conducting corporate research on firms based in both Canada and the U.S., which includes resources available at Carleton University.