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Esta R. Bigler directs Cornell University ILR'S Extension's new program for Labor and Employment Law. This program provides essential resources for attorneys, judges, legislators, policy makers, labor and management officials, and neutrals on workplace law and its impact on the needs of workers, employers, and unions both in the US and abroad.  The program offers conferences, training programs, and research on topics ranging from wages paid to social security, equal employment to collective bargaining, and health care to pensions.

Ms. Bigler, a 1970 graduate of Cornell ILR School has a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.  In 1974 she began her law career as a Field Attorney with the National Labor Relations Board investigating unfair labor practices and handling representation cases.  She then moved to private practice working as an associate in the law firm of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C. where she represented unions in all phases of labor law and plaintiffs in Title VII litigation.  From private practice, Ms. Bigler entered public service where she was the Deputy Director/General Counsel of New York City’s Bureau of Labor Services, which enforced the equal employment opportunity requirements imposed on city contractors forging new ground as one of the authors of the regulations enforcing Executive Order No. 50 She joined the faculty of Cornell University as Visiting Associate Professor of Labor Relations in 1987, and in 1988 she was appointed  Director of the School’s New York City Extension Program a position which she held for seventeen years, overseeing a program of training, education, and research services with an annual enrollment of thousands of  adult participants  from union, management and government.