The Worker Institute brings together researchers, educators and students with practitioners in labor, business and policymaking to address issues related to confronting systemic inequality and building a fair economy, robust democracy and just society. We will share opinion, analysis, research, data, insights and training from our faculty and staff.
News
Lois Spier Gray, 1923 - 2018
The Worker Institute mourns the passing of a champion of workers' rights.
The Worker Institute is leading a delegation of 15 New York labor leaders to Denmark this week to learn about the offshore wind industry. New York state is on the verge of building its first offshore wind project, according to Worker Institute Executive Director Lara Skinner, who is leading the delegation.
The Worker Institute hosted the 43rd Annual UALE Summer School
From July 21st to July 25th, the Worker Institute hosted "With Women We All Rise," the 43rd Annual United Association for Labor Education (UALE) Summer School for women in unions and worker organizations.
These are challenging times for labor and other pro-worker movements. And, the answer to not just surviving, but thriving, is to learn from each other. That’s the aim of the National Labor Leadership Initiative.
As states legalize medical or recreational marijuana, employers, employees and unions are asking how to keep people safe in the workplace. Some of them, including the Center for Occupational & Environmental Medicine in Western New York, are turning to ILR’s Nellie Brown.
Workplaces are hotbeds of possible contagion. Nellie Brown, certified industrial hygienist, annually leads more than 100 trainings about workplace health and safety around New York state. Part of The Worker Institute at Cornell, Brown offers tips on how to minimize the potential for spreading the virus in the office:
This fall, The Worker Institute at Cornell begins the fourth year of its undergraduate fellows program. Research projects for 2017-2018 revolve around the theme of workers and worker organizations responding to the challenges of the 21st century workplace.
Faculty and summer fellows from ILR’s New York City office visited the Joint Industry Board of the Electrical Industry training center in Queens July 13. The tour, led by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 Treasurer Michael Yee, highlighted the work that electricians do to build New York City.
Sarah Koshar, who graduated from the New York State AFL-CIO/Cornell Union Leadership Institute on Friday, said the training has helped her answer her work’s essential question: “What are we going to do in the labor movement to survive and grow?”
“Our carbon footprint is a lot smaller than it could be because we move around millions of people on public transport rather than car, but mass transit is often overlooked,” said Lara Skinner, associate director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University.
When a team of Cornell students, all of whom had experienced pain from typing, wanted to design a “smart glove” to collect data on repetitive stress, their quest led them to Nellie J. Brown.
Fueled by Cornell Initiative, Governor and Labor Unions Announce Climate and Jobs Program
Today’s launch of the Climate Jobs New York campaign and Gov. Andrew Cuomo's announcement to dramatically increase the state’s efforts to combat climate change represents an historic breakthrough.
Refugees and other immigrants sometimes have language and other barriers that limit them from knowing how to avoid hazards at the workplace, but people like Nellie Brown help change that. Brown conducts health and safety training for immigrants working or seeking jobs in the restaurant, hotel and other industries.
To address these challenges, New York day labor centers in collaboration with The Worker Institute at Cornell ILR, have developed a new tool – a mobile phone application to prevent wage theft and other violations of worker rights.
The Worker Institute at Cornell has begun its third year of the Undergraduate Research Fellows program. Each semester, fellows work with faculty in small teams on a range of projects in areas including gender equity, precarious work, immigrant workers and young workers in the labor movement.
Professor Ileen DeVault, a labor historian, has been named academic director of ILR’s Worker Institute. DeVault has served on The Worker Institute’s executive committee since 2012 and is co-chair of the Equity at Work initiative
Ida Torres, a renowned labor leader and educator, passed away last weekend, leaving behind a legacy of activism in the civil rights, women’s rights and the worker rights movements.
ILR’s Shannon Gleeson: Confronting Inequality Means Going Beyond Minimum Wage
Wage theft and other workplace violations are rampant in low-wage industries, and the mechanisms to address these challenges are weak, as Gleeson explains in her recent piece in US News & World Report.
In our upcoming webcast, we examine the ways in which worker rights and collective representation impact inequality and explore innovative solutions developed by the labor movement to solve this growing crisis.
The Worker Institute at Cornell is re-launching “Mobilizing Against Inequality,” a website focused on building a conversation around immigrant worker struggles for rights and representation, and the organizations that advocate for them.
ULI Grad Valeria Treves to Head AFL-CIO Fund for Labor Innovation
Valeria Treves, a graduate of the 2014 class of the New York State AFL-CIO/Cornell Union Leadership Institute, was recently appointed the first full time director of the Labor Innovations for the 21st Century (LIFT) Fund.
Andrew Crook MILR ’16 is a senior communications adviser at the American Federation of Teachers, where he works with ILR alumna Randi Weingarten ’80 to tailor the 1.6 million-member union's public messaging and media relations outreach.
Eli Friedman Op-Ed on Repression of Labor Activism in China
Eli Friedman, assistant professor of international and comparative labor at the ILR School and Worker Institute associate, recently authored an editorial in the Washington Post on the crackdown on labor activists in Guangdong, China.
Student Fellows Examine Caregiving Among Working-Class Men
Worker Institute undergraduate research fellows work on projects individually, or in small teams, under the direction of Cornell faculty based in New York City, Rochester and Buffalo, as well as in Ithaca.
NLLI Nominated for Outstanding Contribution to Labor Education
The National Labor Leadership Initiative (NLLI), an intensive year-long leadership development program for top-level national labor leaders, has been nominated for the United Association for Labor Education (UALE) 2015 Outstanding Contribution to Labor Education.
