Get to Know: Devin Wiggs
Devin Wiggs, who joined the ILR faculty in the fall of 2024, is an assistant professor in the Department of Global Labor and Work. His research examines organized labor’s relationship to finance capital.
What is your research about?
I research what unions do in the world of finance and how they are affected by Wall Street. Unions invest for many reasons: retirement benefits, strike funds, and general wealth, among others. My research has focused on unions and their pension funds, which are worth over $14 trillion across public- and private-sector workforces. How can unions make investors into allies for workers and their campaigns? How can unions invest their pensions responsibly for the greater world of workers? How can unions improve the retirement security of workers? These are questions that animate my research and excite me.
How did you become interested in your field?
My entrance into labor studies, financialization and the welfare state was through the gateway of sociology. Sociology has a structural perspective on inequality and a historical perspective on capitalism that I have found very compelling since my early 20s, as someone from a first-generation, disadvantaged class background. “The economy” is not a given, but rather something we construct. That means at the ILR School we can think about how to make it better for workers!
What impact do you hope your research will have?
I want my research, on the one hand, to inform our policy discussions about retirement in the American welfare state, and on the other hand, to inform investment decisions among unions within the American labor movement. Ultimately, I want my research to be useful to practitioners, policymakers and members as they make difficult choices about how to balance welfare with capital.
What attracted you to the ILR School?
Being part of a storied community with a shared purpose. The ILR School is perhaps the most historic academic institution of the American labor movement and workplace since the postwar era of the 20th century. I wanted to join a collaborative intellectual community that worked closely with practitioners, policy-makers and activists in diagnosing, understanding and solving the problems that workers and their organizations face in 21st century capitalism.
What are you most excited for about your time at ILR?
People and relationships. The ILR School is filled with fascinating, passionate people who know a lot about labor from a million different perspectives! I am most excited to make new relationships with faculty, staff, and students, and am looking forward to the projects that will emerge from these connections.
Besides your work, what's something that you're passionate about?
Music and the arts. A good tune for a specific moment is so life-affirming. I like a lot, from Miles Davis to Black Sabbath to Lianne La Havas. And I’m a dilettante pianist who takes lessons in classical music.
Favorite piece of advice from a mentor or inspiring figure in your life?
Play. My advisor in college, Lars Christiansen, emphasized play as an important quality to bring to our work and life. A sense of play helps us be flexible, open, and nimble and to see new ideas, engage uncertainties, and incorporate challenges that life throws our way every day.
