Five Borough Institute: Statement of Purpose

The Five Borough Institute is a non-partisan research and educational organization whose mission is to encourage the development and implementation of sound and progressive public policies. It will focus on urban economic and political issues, especially those that affect New York City and it surrounding region, including global economic forces that threaten the jobs and livelihood of working people.

Over the past quarter century, the labor movement and other popular movements committed to economic and social justice have lost ground to corporate and conservative interests. One contributing factor has been the ability of these interests to utilize the resources of academic institutions, schools of business, and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation at the national level and the Manhattan Institute in New York City. From these sources, regressive and socially destructive ideas have permeated the media and shaped the thinking and political choices of many ordinary citizens, including union members and young people, exacerbating racial and ethnic divisions and stirring anti-immigrant attitudes

The Institute seeks to reinvigorate a public policy discourse which has become dominated by narrow ideological perspectives. We will attempt to provide more balanced policy assessments which include especially the interests and concerns of working people. To strengthen the growing collaboration between working people and academia, the leadership of the Institute will include trade unionists and union staff as well as faculty members from the social sciences, labor studies, and other disciplines.

The Institute has adopted a multi-pronged approach to promote its objectives. It will fund research projects and will disseminate the results of these studies through union and university publications as well as its own newsletter and other publications. It will convene forums and conferences to discuss the effect on working people and their labor unions of important public policy issues such as the privatization of public services, immigration, and citywide economic development.

At these conferences, research and policy analyses, including those sponsored by the Institute, will be shared with union, corporate and civic leaders. Graduate and undergraduate students, as well as labor union members, officers, and staff, will be encouraged to participate in this work through internship programs, fellowships, and volunteer efforts.

The Institute will issue rapid response analyses to a variety of publications including the monthly employment report of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic Policy Review (the research publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, and releases from the Citizens' Budget Commission, as well as significant legislative and budgetary proposals. These responses will include essays for New York newspapers, press releases, reports in our own newsletter, and working papers published under our imprint.

The Institute plans to publish a policy journal which will include commissioned articles as well as other relevant research. This journal will be disseminated to political figures, the media, the labor press, union leaders, academic specialists, and corporate leaders so they can reflect on and respond to the impact of public policy proposals on working people and their unions and on the economic health of New York City and its surrounding region.

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