Labor Leadership Initiative

The Worker Institute builds on the ILR School's land-grant mission to ensure workers' rights and strengthen organizations and communities.

Our work focuses on labor movement leadership development, strategy and organizational change in unions, professional associations and other worker organizations.

Education & Training

About

We seek to engage with leaders at the highest levels of labor and worker formations that are committed to organizational transformation and interested in innovative strategies. This encompasses four broad areas of work:

Leadership development connected to strategic programs within select worker organizations – We design and deliver union-specific training programs to help build clarity, consensus and capacity to implement new strategic initiatives.
Strategic planning and technical assistance – We work with labor organizations to assist in the development of strategic programs that address new challenges in a changing political and economic climate.
Research on leadership and strategy – Our associates and academic faculty undertake a broad range of research on issues related to leading and managing worker organizations, innovative organizing and bargaining strategies, leadership development, and other areas of interest to union and professional association leaders and scholars.

Stories

ULI Spotlight: Andy Cassagnol Executive Vice President SEIU1199

Feb 17, 2026

Andy Cassagnol,Andy Cassagnol, Executive Vice President of SEIU 1199 in New Jersey, traces his leadership to early experiences witnessing how union representation shaped his family’s stability and protected healthcare workers’ rights.

ULI Spotlight: Andy Cassagnol Executive Vice President SEIU1199

ULI Spotlight: LaShonda Bradberry, Cheektowaga Central Teachers Association, NYSUT

Feb 17, 2026

LaShonda Bradberry is a high school educator and union leader whose passion for political education was shaped by early exposure to civil rights activism and union organizing. Today, she works to strengthen political engagement and expand leadership opportunities for educators of color across New York.

ULI Spotlight: LaShonda Bradberry, Cheektowaga Central Teachers Association, NYSUT

Empowering Workers, Building Leaders

Oct 22, 2025

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).