ILR High Road Ithaca Fellowship
Midstate Council for Occupational Safety and Health 

ILR High Road New York is statewide program that aims to teach ILR students practical methods for civic & community engagement and leadership. The High Road Ithaca Program offers students paid community engaged internships with partner organizations committed to social and environmental justice, diversity and equity, access and education in Ithaca and surrounding areas during the fall or spring semesters. Students work 5-10 hours a week and participate in critical reflection activities throughout the semester.

For more than 25 years, the Midstate Council on Occupational Safety and Health (MCOSH) has provided preventative training and critical services to workers in all industries. Our mission is rooted in the belief all workers have the right to a safe, just, and equitable workplace. 

In recent years, our work has become focused on social justice in the workplace.  Even as Southern states are showing their contempt for Central American migrants, we have focused on support and organizing among essential migrant farm and restaurant workers in the New York mid-state region, with much of our work taking place in Tompkins County. We have also facilitated our Teens Lead At Work Program since 2015, a youth workplace leadership development opportunity for Tompkins County youth to learn about workplace safety and health, their rights on the job, and how to advocate for them.

The Midstate Council for Occupational Safety and Health (MCOSH) COSH has been awarded a grant from the Park Foundation to build upon our existing work of advancing workplace health and safety via education and advocacy in the Worker Justice for All  (WJA) Program.

For the Worker Justice for All Program, MCOSH will review and expand upon our workplace health and safety training modules, offering our curricula to a wider audience. Training will cover safety and health across multiple industries, and include subjects on OSHA, Sexual Harassment, Climate Resiliency, Infectious Disease, and more. They will incorporate practices from our Training for Trainers: How Adults Learn modules, which MCOSH has utilized to train our own staff and empower dozens of Worker Leaders throughout the agriculture, building trades, and service industries. 

In addition to providing workers with training, we plan to develop a “Worker Community Network.” MCOSH organizers will host “support groups,” where workers can discuss their frustrations at work and what they’d like to see changed; film-screenings and community potlucks; plan workshops and panels led by workers with experience in asserting their rights at work, and more. We will incentivize more communication among the workers we train by creating email listservs and secure text group-chats via Signal & WhatsApp, where MCOSH trainees can talk with one another. MCOSH organizers will periodically send worker-rights related materials and news, as well updates on upcoming trainings and community events to these communication groups.

Roles & Responsibilities with MCOSH

• Our goal is to train at least 150 workers in and around Tompkins County between June 2025 and May 2026. We plan to partner with community centers, labor unions, and schools throughout ICSD to empower workers with preventive training–grounded in diversity, equity, and inclusions.
• We plan to incorporate at least 100 of these trainees into our Worker Community Network in addition to 25 workers MCOSH has previously trained.
• Conduct outreach to current and prospective training partners throughout the Midstate region to businesses, nonprofits, labor unions, and local government agencies in coordination with Outreach Director and Youth Coordinator.
• Facilitate workplace health and safety training on core program modules, including subjects on OSHA Rights, Sexual Harassment, Workplace Violence, and Training the Trainer Curricula.
• Coordinate with trainers in MCOSH’s Teens Lead @ Work Program, including; working alongside Peer Leaders, leading team meetings, supporting curriculum development for training and developing social programming to help bring workers into the Worker Community Network.
• Assist in maintaining relationships with local and regional union organizations, including support for union organizing efforts by farmworkers.
• Collaborate with the Youth Coordinator in managing the MCOSH website and Facebook, and Instagram pages.
• Maintain and submit biweekly timesheets
• Youth Organizer Fellows will have until the end of the program to complete these assignments, with benchmarks to be determined upon acceptance and onboarding into the program.

Required Skills

• Comfort with public Speaking, specifically in front of large audiences and in organizing scenarios (required)
• Experience with PowerPoint and giving timed presentations
• Policy Research, summarization
• Organization and Management, specifically for one’s office space and timesheets
• Comfort with learning and education
• Driver’s License preferred, not required
• Experience + Familiarity with workplace safety, labor regulations, and occupational safety preferred but not required

This Program will overwhelmingly take place at the MCOSH Office (950 Danby Rd Ithaca, NY), with opportunities for Youth Fellows, at the discretion and approval of their supervisor, to operate remotely. Remote work will be limited to times of emergency for Youth Fellows or their supervisor, as well as for work that has been previously discussed in-person with the Youth Fellow’s supervisor and deemed capable of being done without direct supervision (such as social media asset development or outreach with pre-approved details). All remote work will be reviewed in-person with the Youth Fellow’s Supervisor within 2 business days of its completion.

The MCOSH is located on 950 Danby Rd Suite 125 Ithaca, NY 14850.