Daniel Graff
Institute for Social Concerns
Director, Higgins Labor Program; Faculty Joint Appointment, History
- Contemporary labor issues
- Gender, race, and labor
- Labor history
- Economic history
- History of capitalism
- Just wage
- Race and ethnicity
Graff’s 91视频
Graff in the News
OSV News
August 28, 2025
Dan Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame — who was invited to the “Synodal Meeting Fratelli Tutti” but unable to attend — nonetheless had some thoughts to share. “What’s important is that the church is invested in that kind of stakeholder process. Catholic social teaching is really adamant that participation matters, for all members of society,” Graff stressed. “And if you use the dignity of each individual human person as the basis for that participation, then that requires workers in unions and other solidarity groups to have a role in helping shape the economy.”
OSV News
August 06, 2025
Dan Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, suggested that Pope Leo XIV’s election will heighten interest in many of the topics the pontiff seeks to address. “Pope Leo’s call for attention to labor questions, technology and migration — which he’s long been concerned about, and which is so inherently wrapped up in the labor question — that’s going to spur a lot more academic and social interest in the church on these questions,” he said.
OSV News
November 05, 2024
Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Social Concerns in Indiana, also questioned the strategic capacity of Trump’s plan, while noting U.S. labor unions have in recent decades evolved on the issue of unauthorized immigrant labor.
National Catholic Reporter
October 08, 2024
Daniel Graff — director of the Higgins labor program at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana — noted that consumer complacency cast the ILA strike in sharp relief. "Americans as consumers just got so accustomed to — over the last 30, 40 years — not having any disruptions to the daily routine of being able to get what you want, when you want, at a price you're used to," he observed.
Our Sunday Visitor
November 16, 2023
Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame”s Center for Social Concerns, remarked, “Starbucks has become the poster child for the service sector employer — the labor-intensive sectors — that say, ‘We cannot have a unionized workforce; we cannot imagine any kind of reallocation of power that’s going to result in some reallocation of the surplus; some reallocation of the income to our workforce.'”
OSV News
November 02, 2023
“This is the way the economy should work,” said Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, “when workers get to say what they need, and employers respond with what they can do, and you come to an agreement.”
WNIT
Video
October 27, 2023
The United Auto Workers (UAW) has entered into its sixth consecutive week. The Ford Motor Company and the UAW have recently come to a tentative agreement aimed at bringing the strike to a close to their plants. For an in-depth analysis of this crucial development and its broader implications, we are joined by Glenn Stevens Jr., the Executive Director of MICHauto, and Daniel Graff, a labor historian and Director at the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame.
OSV News
September 28, 2023
“It’s just the foundational idea that workers must be foregrounded in businesses’ estimation of thinking about their use of labor,” Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, told OSV News. “Workers’ interests and workers’ inherent dignity is something that needs to be considered — and at the same time, the commitment to workers having a voice in the process.”
OSV News
September 04, 2023
“I definitely think this Labor Day, there’s more of a focus by the nation on the state of labor,” said Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. “Coming out of the pandemic — and with the rise of labor organizing we’ve seen the last couple of years — it’s clear that Americans are talking about labor questions more than in the recent past.”
NPR
July 26, 2023
Dan Graff, the director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, says the Great Resignation signaled what American workers need: allies at the policy level. On Wednesday’s edition of “Closer Look,” he told show host Rose Scott that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, workers didn’t stop working completely, they moved into other job sectors to make financial gains.
Our Sunday Visitor
July 24, 2023
“In an era where outsourcing of labor usually results in the deterioration of pay, benefits, and conditions, it’s refreshing to see this contract between Compass and Unite Here that will significantly improve workers’ lives over the next several years at Catholic University and other DC-area organizations,” said Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns, which also operates the Just Wage Initiative.
OSV News
February 28, 2023
"It's almost next to impossible to successfully organize a union today in the United States, if an employer deliberately tries to oppose it," Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame's Center for Social Concerns, told OSV News.
South Bend Tribune
February 08, 2022
The League of Women Voters presents a talk by Dan Graff at its next virtual luncheon, at noon Feb. 11.
Associated Press
January 21, 2022
Labor shortages are giving workers a rare upper hand in wage negotiations. And Dan Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, said the pandemic gave many workers the time and space to rethink what they want from their jobs.
Buffalo News
December 11, 2021
As Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, scrolled through news reports about the Starbucks unionization campaign in Buffalo, he was shocked how many of the workers quoted are longtime employees of the coffee chain.
Associated Press
December 09, 2021
And Dan Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, said the pandemic gave many workers the time and space to rethink what they want from their jobs.
Associated Press
November 10, 2021
Dan Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, said many workers are burned out and tired of playing by the pre-coronavirus rules.聽
WVPE
Audio
October 08, 2021
Featuring Daniel Graff, Director of the Higgins Labor Program; Daniel Hobbins, Associate Professor of History; and Tamara Kay, Professor of Global Affairs & Sociology.
Lakeshore Public Radio
Audio
October 05, 2021
Guests: Daniel Graff, Director of the Higgins Labor Program;聽Daniel Hobbins, Associate Professor of History;聽and Tamara Kay, Professor of Global Affairs & Sociology.
National Catholic Reporter
September 06, 2021
Conversations on just wages and the economy should include such fundamentals, said Daniel Graff, director of the University of Notre Dame's Higgins Labor Program, part of the university's Center for Social Concerns.
Newsweek
January 24, 2021
Daniel Graff, the director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, said a minimum wage increase is not only long overdue, but it would also be significant to states, like Graff's home of Indiana, that have not lifted wages at all.
WNDU
Video
December 01, 2020
鈥淣ow, I worry sometimes that employers have a lot more sway over their workers, and maybe, you know, unfortunately, in some cases would intimidate workers from actually exercising the right,鈥� expressed Dr. Daniel Graff, a labor historian and professor at the University of Notre Dame.