Labor Leadership Initiative

The Worker Institute builds on a 75-year tradition by the ILR School to help fulfill Cornell’s land grant mission – to assist working people in ensuring their rights on the job and in building effective organizations and strong communities.

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

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:

• Education and training for leaders of unions and worker organizations - Highlights include our signature projects, the National Labor Leadership Initiative, the Union Leadership Institute, and the Global Labor Leadership Institute which have graduated hundreds of leaders from every sector of the labor movement.
• 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.

For more information contact: laborleadership@cornell.edu