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ILR Advocates for Workplace Health and Safety

Since joining the National Football League Players Association as its general counsel & head of business, Sean Sansiveri ’05 has been behind the NFL’s most important measures to make the game safer.

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Buffalo Bills players look on after teammate Damar Hamlin #3 collapsed on the field after making a tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals during the first quarter at Paycor Stadium on January 02, 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

Justice at Work: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

See more justice at work: diversity, equity and inclusion stories

Yasmin Ballew ’23 Receives Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award

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ILRie will use award funding to establish a partnership between Alpha Phi Omega and the Greater Ithaca Activities Center.
Yasmin Ballew ’23
Yasmin Ballew ’23 Receives Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award

ILRie Helps Formerly Incarcerated

Sakiel Ruff ’25 spent his High Road summer developing a database to help formerly incarcerated people find housing.
Sakiel Ruff ’25
ILRie Helps Formerly Incarcerated

Raising and Indexing State Minimum Wage Would Have a Large Impact on Women, People of Color, and Immigrants in Western New York

Dr. Russell Weaver, Sam Magavern, and Haley Smith issue policy brief on impact of NYS raising the minimum wage.
Photo of a pay stub
Raising and Indexing State Minimum Wage Would Have a Large Impact on Women, People of Color, and Immigrants in Western New York

New York at Work 2022

Annual Report

Designed as a resource for policymakers and the public, the ILR School’s annual New York at Work report examines jobs and other issues impacting communities and individuals across the state.

New York State Impact
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New York State: Economy, Policy, and Practice

See more stories about our work in New York State

As a New York land-grant college, we have a state mandate to apply our work in service to our local communities, state and regional economies, and partners in governance. We create and share knowledge, build relationships, and inform strategies aimed at improving economic well-being for all New Yorkers.

Coupling our strong physical foundations in Buffalo, Ithaca, and New York City with our rapidly expanding virtual presence in the COVID-19 era, our resources and infrastructure allow us to pursue local innovations that have global implications.

Regional Town-Gown Conference Focuses on Labor, Employment

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Community leaders and ILR School experts discussed issues such as childcare, remote and hybrid work, and housing and demographic trends at the Regional Town-Gown Conference, held April 18 at the Hotel Ithaca.
ILR Dean Alex Colvin speaks at the Regional Town-Gown Conference
Regional Town-Gown Conference Focuses on Labor, Employment

Minimum Wage Increase Yields Positives: Report

Increasing the Tompkins County minimum wage of $16.61 to a living wage would increase earnings for thousands of workers and reduce racial and gender disparities, according to a new Ithaca Co-Lab report.
Money in the back pocket of a pair of jeans
Minimum Wage Increase Yields Positives: Report

Dashboard Details Surge in NYS Eviction Filings

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As part of its on-going public impact mission and “data democratization” initiative, the Buffalo Co-Lab has launched the Cornell ILR Eviction Filings Dashboard for New York, a tool designed to help citizens, policymakers and nonprofits more easily visualize where eviction filings have occurred since 2018.
An eviction notice hangs on a door.
Dashboard Details Surge in NYS Eviction Filings

A driving principle behind our research, teaching, training, and practice is that everyone deserves fair and equal access to jobs, housing, healthcare, and other means for achieving economic security. Our work seeks solutions that remove inequitable barriers to economic opportunities, whether those barriers occur within an individual workplace or at the structural levels of our political and economic systems.

You can see a handful of our recent work below.

New Department Reflects ILR’s Global Relevance, Academic Excellence

Drawing on faculty expertise in labor relations, labor law, anthropology, economics, history, political science and sociology, the Global Labor and Work Department studies workers, employers and the government policies affecting them.
A worker checks stock in a warehouse
New Department Reflects ILR’s Global Relevance, Academic Excellence

ILR professor discusses inclusive hiring practices for neurodiverse applicants

A recent profile by the American Psychological Association shares expert advice from Susanne Bruyère for recruiting and hiring people who are neurodiverse. It also discusses the importance of neurodiversity in the workplace.
Susanne Bruyère, wearing a purple blazer with several strands of white pearls and matching earrings
ILR professor discusses inclusive hiring practices for neurodiverse applicants

CAROW Introduces Yang-Tan WorkABILITY Incubator

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Funding from K. Lisa Yang '74 will support innovative applied research projects and foster collaborations across Cornell to address important societal issues linked to work.
K. Lisa Yang
CAROW Introduces Yang-Tan WorkABILITY Incubator

Collective Representation and Worker Voice

See more stories about collective representation workers' voices

We were founded to study and improve the world of work. We have strong research roots in labor relations and negotiations, and our work with varying communities comes from our commitment to understanding collective representation, the perspectives of workers, and improving workers' lives.

Amazon Labor Organizers Encourage Solidarity

For more than 300 days, Amazon workers talked with their peers to build relationships, trust and, ultimately, a union that many thought would never be possible, Amazon Labor Union leaders said at ILR during Union Days.
Chris Small speaks at 2013 Union Days
Amazon Labor Organizers Encourage Solidarity

A Conversation with Jennifer Abruzzo, President Biden’s General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board

Please join Cornell University ILR Buffalo Co-Lab on June 6, 2023, from 10-12:30pm for an in-person discussion with featured speaker, Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel, NLRB alongside leaders in the Labor Movement with ties to Buffalo.
CWA Protest in Buffalo
A Conversation with Jennifer Abruzzo, President Biden’s General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board

ILRie Leading Hollywood Writers

Ellen Stutzman ’04 is at the center of 11,500 striking screenwriters whose union is picketing Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Universal and Paramount.
Writers Guild members strike in front of NBC
ILRie Leading Hollywood Writers

Leadership Development

We work with communities, organizations, departments and companies – all to help develop leaders who will make workplaces and employment itself better. Foundations in management and collective bargaining, and our 75 years in industry put us in a unique position to help develop leaders in business, labor and policy.

CAHRS

Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies

CAHRS is the world's leading partnership between industry and academia, devoted to global human resource management. The CAHRS partnership connects leading companies to Cornell University, the ILR School, and leading faculty, students and intellectual leaders throughout the world.

several towers from Cornell's Ithaca campus
Visit CAHRS

Labor Leadership Training

We work with union leaders at national and state levels to develop training programs for aspiring and established leaders within the labor field.

Explore labor leadership programs

Senior Leader Programs

We bring together world-class faculty with business and industry leaders to design and deliver training systems that develop HR, business and management leaders. Learn from world-class faculty dedicated to HR research and driving organizational performance.

Man leaning reflected against city glass door
Find out more about our senior leadership training

ILR and Einhorn Center Partner to Create Office of Engaged and Experiential Programs

The ILR School is the latest undergraduate college at Cornell to be selected for the Einhorn Center's Engaged College Initiative.
Person sitting on a wall overlooking a city
ILR and Einhorn Center Partner to Create Office of Engaged and Experiential Programs

WNYCOSH, COEM, and CORNELL ILR Host Forum on Opioids and Work

Opioids have been in the headlines for decades regarding the devastation they’ve caused to individual lives, families and communities. Whether through workplace exposures or injuries, work has been a significant contributor to the waves of the opioid epidemic.
Opioid Bottle and Doctor Prescribing
WNYCOSH, COEM, and CORNELL ILR Host Forum on Opioids and Work

Community Engagement Fellowships Awarded

Two people at the ILR School are part of the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement's 2022-2023 cohort.
Cornell campus
Community Engagement Fellowships Awarded

ILR in the News

Our work from the media

See more ILR news coverage

More US Women Are Working Than Ever, Reversing Pandemic Slump

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Professor Francine Blau said lower fertility rates could be contributing to women’s greater workforce participation.
More US Women Are Working Than Ever, Reversing Pandemic Slump

Surge in strikes at Chinese factories after Covid rules end

The Guardian
China seems to be entering a “new era” of post-Covid factory strikes, said Eli Professor Friedman.
Surge in strikes at Chinese factories after Covid rules end

Subpoena of Starbucks union conversations with reporters violates labor law, judge rules

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"Effectively, the NLRB judge is saying that the Starbucks’ subpoenas violate the National Labor Relations Act. Those are the same subpoenas Judge Sinatra supported," said Cathy Creighton, director of the Buffalo Co-Lab.
Subpoena of Starbucks union conversations with reporters violates labor law, judge rules