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Klein ’88 Honored for Achievement, Commitment

“ILR taught me to look at the bigger picture,” says 2024 Alpern Award recipient.

Lauren Ezrol Klein ’88
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Alumni Stories

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Weingarten ’80 Reflects on Week at ILR

As the 2024 Alice B. Grant Labor Leader in Residence, ILRie Randi Weingarten spent time at ILR teaching, speaking and meeting with students, professors and university staff.
Randi Weingarten '80
Weingarten ’80 Reflects on Week at ILR

A Gentle Man, With Backbone

Mark Eskenazi’s road to the White House began at ILR.
Mark Eskenazi ’05
A Gentle Man, With Backbone

Music Industry Connects ILRies

Ken Sunshine ’70 has “offered the world to me” as a mentor and advisor, says entrepreneur Drew Speckman ’20.
Ken Sunshine ’70 and Drew Speckman ’20 in Los Angeles, California.
Music Industry Connects ILRies

James Miller Being Honored April 18

The 2024 Groat awardee helps bring opera to the people, and internship, scholarship and professional opportunities to ILRies.
Jim Miller ’88
James Miller Being Honored April 18

A Self-Professed “Late Bloomer” Returns to East Hill

JC Tretter ’13 talks in an interview about broken bones, ruffling feathers, a bum knee, almost quitting football, constant eating, the fun of pro football, what’s next (not lawyering, fyi) and Cornell places he loves.
Joseph Carl "JC" Tretter Jr. '13
A Self-Professed “Late Bloomer” Returns to East Hill

Custodian to National Union Leader: an ILRie’s Journey

An ILR student helped establish the United Auto Workers Local 2300, which now represents Cornell building maintenance and service workers.
Al Davidoff ’80
Custodian to National Union Leader: an ILRie’s Journey

ILR Donors Make All the Difference

To Do the Greatest Good

The ILR community everywhere is continuing to do the greatest good. Each year, ILR alumni, parents and friends come together to support the ILR School to ensure all students have the resources they need to be successful. Each year, the school recruits and retains faculty who are outstanding educators and leading researchers.

Your gift helps ILR remain the preeminent school focused on work, employment and labor. ILR is proud to be developing the thought leaders and practitioners shaping the future of work, and your gift advances this mission.

Please read our ILR Case for Support here

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News

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Union Days Kicks Off with Keynote by Randi Weingarten ’80

Cornell ILR's Union Days begins Tuesday, March 5, with "Unions, Labor, and Freedom of Expression," a presentation given by Randi Weingarten ’80.
Randi Weingarten
Union Days Kicks Off with Keynote by Randi Weingarten ’80

Malcomb Leads ILR WIDE Undergraduate Research Program

Doctoral student Claire Malcomb supports undergraduate research on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Claire Malcomb
Malcomb Leads ILR WIDE Undergraduate Research Program

ILRie Interns With U.S. District Court Judge

Alex Herazy ’25 spent a semester interning with U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman as part of a credit internship
Alex Herazy ’25 with Judge Richard Berman '64
ILRie Interns With U.S. District Court Judge

Events

Unionizing the Ivory Tower - A Special Book Event with the author, Al Davidoff

The Worker Institute is sponsoring a special book event that should be of interest to union leaders and activists, social justice organizers, labor studies students, and everyone wishing to promote worker rights. Unionizing the Ivory Tower chronicles how a thousand low-paid custodians, cooks, and gardeners succeeded in organizing a union at Cornell University.
book launch
Unionizing the Ivory Tower - A Special Book Event with the author, Al Davidoff

Make Your Shortlist Longer. An Actionable and Equitable Hiring Strategy.

eCornell Keynote — Progress toward gender equity in most industries — especially in leadership — continues to be disappointingly slow. While there are many blockers of progress, one particular hiring practice stands out: In informal hiring situations, managers will often devise a shortlist of potential hires. The informality of that shortlist — and the familiarity with candidates — reproduces implicit and systemic bias by its very informality. In short, hiring managers know people who look and think like them, and they are the people who typically get shortlisted and hired. Managers then end up missing out on the best talent available to them. New research by Professor Brian Lucas and a team at Cornell’s ILR School finds that when you make your shortlist longer to include more women, you reduce the risk of overlooking strong female candidates who may be better suited for the role than typical male shortlisters. Why deprive your organization of the best, most-qualified talent? Make your shortlist longer and you’ll not only make smarter hiring decisions, but you’ll also be helping to reduce systemic and implicit bias in your workplace. Minimal effort, maximal return.

Localist event image for Make Your Shortlist Longer. An Actionable and Equitable Hiring Strategy.
Make Your Shortlist Longer. An Actionable and Equitable Hiring Strategy.

Joint Labor & Public Economics Workshop: Guo Xu

Guo Xu, Berkeley Beyond the War: Public Service and the Transmission of Gender Norms This paper combines personnel records of the U.S. federal government with census data to study how shocks to the gender composition of an organization can persistently shift the gender norms of its workers. We exploit city-by-department variation in the sudden expansion of female clerical employment driven by America’s entrance into World War I, and find that daughters of civil servants exposed to female co-workers are more likely to work later in life, command higher income, and have fewer children. The effects are driven by exposed fathers and daughters in their teenage years at the time of exposure. We also show that cities exposed to a larger increase in female federal workers saw persistently higher female labor force participation in the public sector, as well as modest increases in private sector labor force participation. Collectively, the results are thus consistent with both the vertical and horizontal transmission of gender norms, and highlight how increasing gender representation within an organization can have broader labor market implications.

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Joint Labor & Public Economics Workshop: Guo Xu

A Conversation with NLRB Board Member

Join us for a conversation with David Prouty, National Labor Relations Board member. This is an in-person event co-sponsored by Cornell's Student Assembly and is part of ILR's Union Days 2024. Free and open to the public. Reception with refreshments to follow.

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A Conversation with NLRB Board Member

Conference on Transnational Labor Rights in a Globalized Economy

Join us in Ithaca to discuss the challenges to workers’ power posed by global supply chains and trade agreements, and the tools devised to address them, including new international instruments and global movements. This conference brings together labor activists, organizers, legal experts, and scholars to discuss how workers may build their power in a contemporary climate of liberalized trade, increasing interconnectivity, and global supply chains. Hear about efforts to advance an ILO standard on decent work in global supply chains, and learn about real-world developments from labor organizers in the Global south. See our full list of speakers here. Conference Co-Organizers: Desirée LeClercq (Cornell University) and Hila Shamir (Tel Aviv University) Sponsors: American Society of International LawCornell ILR Global Labor InstituteCornell International Law JournalFrank W. Pierce Memorial FundCornell Law School Tel Aviv University Exchange InitiativeMario Einaudi Center for International Studies

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Conference on Transnational Labor Rights in a Globalized Economy

The Left in China

Ralf Ruckus will present central arguments from the book The Left in China. A Political Cartography (Pluto Press, 2023): All over the world, progressive forces debate the nature of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While some consider them to be socialist, others recognize the critical role of the current CCP government in facilitating capitalist exploitation and the suppression of social struggles. Often, little or no attention is given to leftwing oppositional movements and groups in the PRC. Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, changing class divisions have led to waves of social protests by workers, migrants, and women, which inspired several generations of leftwing opposition against CCP rule. The dialectic of social struggles and leftwing oppositional movements has shaped the history of the PRC, from the socialist build-up in the 1950s to the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the democracy movements in the 1970s and 1980s, the resistance of the socialist working class against capitalist restructuring in the 1990s and 2000s, and the struggles of migrant workers and women since. This event is co-sponsored by the East Asia Program.

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The Left in China

Meet our Team

  • Assistant Dean, ILR AAD

  • Gift Officer

  • Assistant Director

  • Program Assistant