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ILR, Unions Offer NYC Construction Workers Innovative Emotional First Aid

New York State Public Impact

The ILR School’s Worker Institute and unions have launched an innovative peer support initiative to destigmatize mental health and reduce suicide in New York City’s construction industry.

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Arianna Schindle (left) and Jeff Grabelsky (right) of the ILR School’s Worker Institute talk with Paul Schwan (center), a member of the Ornamental and Architectural Ironworkers Union Local 361 and an instructor in the peer supporter program.

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, our resources and infrastructure allow us to pursue local innovations that have global implications.

Justice at Work: Belonging

See more justice at work and belonging

How Older Adults are Getting Home Care

Dr. Madeline Sterling discusses long-term care for older adults and highlights that most prefer to age at home. She discusses existing gaps in the healthcare system, including underfunded services and geographic differences; and emphasizes that telehealth and AI can be leveraged with support from better infrastructure and ongoing research.
social-worker-taking-care-old-woman
How Older Adults are Getting Home Care

Relentless Advocate Bridges Research, Policy and Practice

Scientific inquiry, practical solutions and pioneering strategies led by Susanne Bruyère have changed work cultures around the world to include more people with disabilities.
Susanne Bruyère
Relentless Advocate Bridges Research, Policy and Practice

Tools You Can Use and More: 2025 Year-in-Review for YTI

The Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability highlights its 2025 impact, previews future initiatives, and offers tools you can use today.
Looking over a snowy pine branch toward Cornell’s iconic clock tower.
Tools You Can Use and More: 2025 Year-in-Review for YTI

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.

Improving Interviews for Autistic Jobseekers

Researchers at ILR's Yang-Tan Institute are studying the experiences of Autistic jobseekers in STEM to understand interview challenges and develop recommendations for improving the hiring process.
Job interview
Improving Interviews for Autistic Jobseekers

Job Listings With Wide Pay Ranges May Deter Female Applicants

Cornell Chronicle
Pay range transparency laws intended to promote pay equity can inadvertently deter women from applying, thus perpetuating gender gaps in the workforce, according to research from Alice Lee, assistant professor of organizational behavior.
Missing alt
Job Listings With Wide Pay Ranges May Deter Female Applicants

Just Cause Dismissal Protections in Ithaca

As the City of Ithaca debates whether to consider adopting just cause protections, Ian Greer, Director of the ILR Ithaca Co-Lab at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, provides facts and data to answer commonly asked questions about them.
Dark haired, Caucasian woman, carrying office supplies in a box, looking over a second floor balcony.
Just Cause Dismissal Protections in Ithaca

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.

ILR, Unions Offer NYC Construction Workers Innovative Emotional First Aid

Cornell Chronicle
The ILR School’s Worker Institute and unions have launched an innovative peer support initiative to destigmatize mental health and reduce suicide in New York City’s construction industry.
Arianna Schindle (left) and Jeff Grabelsky (right) of the ILR School’s Worker Institute talk with Paul Schwan (center), a member of the Ornamental and Architectural Ironworkers Union Local 361 and an instructor in the peer supporter program.
ILR, Unions Offer NYC Construction Workers Innovative Emotional First Aid

How Can Unions Negotiate AI in the Workplace? Lessons from the Port Sector

The Dockers' AI Toolkit by José Luis Gallegos provides guidance on how workers can negotiate over artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace. Although the toolkit is grounded in the port sector, its lessons extend far beyond dock work.
A human hand and robot hand
How Can Unions Negotiate AI in the Workplace? Lessons from the Port Sector

Empowering Workers, Building Leaders

On October 9, 2025, thirty participants celebrated their graduation from the first Housekeeping Technician and Leadership Development Workshop Series, a collaborative training effort between Labor Leadership Initiatives at Cornell’s ILR School and the Worker Justice Project (WJP).
WJP Graduation. Cleaning technicians 2
Empowering Workers, Building Leaders

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

22 January 2026 Cornell Southeast Asia Program, Global Labor Institute and Thammasat Business School Bangkok Conference 'Hot Air: What works to combat extreme heat in apparel production in Asia?' Recap

Please enjoy our recap of our 22 January 2026 conference in Bangkok, 'Hot Air: What works to combat extreme heat in apparel production in Asia?'
People sit in a room for a conference behind wooden tables.
22 January 2026 Cornell Southeast Asia Program, Global Labor Institute and Thammasat Business School Bangkok Conference 'Hot Air: What works to combat extreme heat in apparel production in Asia?' Recap

Regenerative Organizing

Regenerative organizing builds long-term power by restoring our capacity, relationships, and imagination—rather than depleting them. This cohort is designed for leaders who want to deepen their member leadership, strengthen organizing capacity, and address the stress and trauma embedded in the work.
Group of women with raised hands to hold an item above their heads together. "Regenerative Organizing"
Regenerative Organizing

New Strategies for Addressing Sexual Harassment at Work To Be Webinar Topic

The free, live webinar, “Insights from Research and Advocacy to Address Sexual Harassment and Intimate Partner Violence in the Workplace,” will be held on December 11 from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
A woman cringes as her co-worker places a hand on her shoulder
New Strategies for Addressing Sexual Harassment at Work To Be Webinar Topic

ILR in the News

Our work from the media

See more ILR news coverage

The Looming Crisis in Home Health Care

The New Republic
“The workforce has just historically been under-recognized and under-appreciated,” said Madeline Sterling, a primary care doctor at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of the Initiative on Home Care Work, housed in ILR’s Center for Applied Research on Work, commenting on home health care workers.
The Looming Crisis in Home Health Care

Cayuga Medical nurses overwhelmingly voted to unionize: Why this matters to us

The Ithaca Voice
In this op-ed, Rosemary Batt, ILR professor emerita, describes the benefits – to patients, nurses and health care systems – that nurses’ unions generally bring about and discusses benefits that could result from the recent unionization of nurses at Cayuga Medical Center. Batt also references data from ILR’s Labor Action Tracker.
Cayuga Medical nurses overwhelmingly voted to unionize: Why this matters to us

Bay Area teacher strikes highlight growing labor tensions

KTVU FOX
Lee Adler, ILR visiting lecturer, points out several factors that have led to teacher strikes in California.
Bay Area teacher strikes highlight growing labor tensions

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