At its heart, the Worker Institute views its work as a contribution to reversing the growing inequality, now at historic levels, which undermines the economic and social sustainability of a vibrant democratic society.  The Institute provides the nation’s most comprehensive education, training, research, and organizational support for union leaders and worker advocates.  Worker Institute research fellows, sometimes in small teams, will have the opportunity to work directly with Ithaca-based faculty and ILR labor extension faculty based in NYC.

The fellowship program’s goal is to provide ILR students with a unique opportunity to contribute to important projects concerning workers and unions, expand their research skills, learn about potential career paths and interact with faculty, labor leaders and other fellows.

The main selection criteria include a strong academic record and a demonstrated interest in one of the Worker Institute’s research areas. 

Evaluating Gig and Farm Worker Center Organizing and Advocacy

This project is a mixed methods study to evaluate the strategies and impact of Worker Center organizing and policy advocacy. Utilizing the cases of gig- and farm- Worker Center organizing in New York State we seek to study the impact of recent gig worker reform efforts in New York City and the Excluded Workers Fund in New York State. The research assistant would aid in the administration of a survey, interviews with workers and Worker Center staff, and qualitative coding of the interviews. Students who can speak either Spanish, Bangali, Hindi, or French would be a plus but not required. In addition to helping with survey and interview analysis the RA would be expected to attend project team meetings. This project is a collaboration between researchers at Cornell and Syracuse University – with Andrew Wolf