Labor Day 2023: ILR’s Worker Institute Reflects and Recommits
More than 100,000 workers went on strike between May and June 2023, reveals ILR Cornell’s Labor Action Tracker. Filings of union petitions with the NLRB increased 57% and a recent Gallup poll shows that 68% of Americans approve of labor union organizing and union activity.
This level of labor activity is unprecedented but not surprising; a whole generation of young workers, union members, and essential workers risked their lives during the pandemic only to experience greed at the hands of corporate America.
Worker organizing is on the rise because Americans are demanding investment in their lives and communities. The ongoing “hot labor summer of strikes” is an example of workers coming together to fight for better pay, better working conditions, a voice at work via union representation, and respect for their lives.
We at the Worker Institute are proud of our continued work to support union and worker justice leaders with research, training, and education. We seek to equip change-makers with the skills to challenge the increasing levels of income inequality and worker precarity. From our research on public sector workers and app delivery platform workers to our ongoing policy papers on gender violence prevention and care work, we provide critical information that informs organizing and policy activity that supports worker rights.
This summer, we convened over 100 union leaders and care workers through our Future of Care Work initiative. Together, leaders envisaged a future for care workers that is shaped by worker voices and experiences.
Successful events like these reinforce our excitement and dedication to our work in the care and gig economy. By engaging directly with union leaders to develop strategies for training and education, we aim to support the empowerment of workers themselves to advocate for economic opportunity and fairness.
Further serving this mission, we launched the 2023 NYS/Cornell Union Leadership Program this summer in Ithaca, NY. Alongside an inspiring group of labor leaders from diverse sectors and industries, the program sought to build a coherent vision of worker power.
Our team at the WI celebrates Labor Day by recommitting ourselves to supporting workers’ struggles for dignity and fairness on the job. We are committed to the fundamental value that collective representation, workers' rights, and union representation are vital to a fair economy, a robust democracy, and a just society.