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. 

Organization and history of the Tompkins Cortland Labor Coalition

This project explores the organization and history of the Tompkins Cortland Labor Coalition an organization active in the Finger Lakes region especially during the 1980s and 1990s. The coalition was a dynamic community-labor partnership composed of labor unions, civil society organizations, non-profit groups and individuals engaged in working-class activism. Veterans of the coalition have recently asked Ian Greer and Paul Ortiz to help document the coalition’s work and many legacies to build on the collection of the group’s papers in the Kheel Center.

We will examine the rise of a successful labor coalition formed during a time of de-industrialization and widespread defeats in the broader labor movement. We are especially concerned with factors that generated and sustained solidarity over this period, the role of worker-generated media, the connections the coalition forged between organized labor and broader rural communities, victories in collective bargaining and legislation, and the challenges activists faced, including those that led to the coalition’s eclipse in the late 1990s.

Equally important, we will assess the cultural and political legacies of the Tompkins Cortland Labor Coalition for Midstate New York. Students will have the opportunity to take part in oral history interviews, explore archival data, assist in organizing and analyzing the material, and think through how to present the findings in a way that contributes to the broad learning of today’s labor activists, locally and perhaps further afield as well. – with Professors Ian Greer and Paul Ortiz