Cornell labor institute hosts global workplace forum in New York City

By Linda Myers

Leading international labor leaders are meeting in New York City, Sept. 23-24, to discuss solutions to the biggest challenges they face today: global outsourcing, workers' rights and the labor movement's relationship with other social movements working for global change.

The meeting is the inaugural conference of the newly formed Global Labor Institute, launched by Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), and it takes place at ILR Extension's Metropolitan District Office, 16 East 34th St. in Manhattan.

"Cornell ILR's mission is to improve the world of work," said Sean Sweeney, the new Global Labor Institute coordinator. "Unions are concerned that work around the world is often performed under arduous and threatening circumstances, with economic as well as human consequences. Globalization is turning the world of work upside down. For unions, the challenges are formidable, but the basis for international cooperation is greater than ever."

Guests from overseas attending the conference include Zwelinzima Vavi, the general secretary of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and labor leaders from Britain and Canada. U.S. union leaders speaking at the event are Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Bruce Raynor, general president of UNITE-HERE!, and James P. Hoffa Jr., president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Joining them is Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., Bill Fletcher Jr., president of TransAfrica Forum, and Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.

"Both national and New York-area unions will benefit from the Global Labor Institute as an organizing hub for discussion, education and collaboration around international labor issues," said Raynor.

Esta R. Bigler, director of the ILR metropolitan office, said, "The Global Labor Institute is designed to meet the new challenges faced by the U.S. labor movement in this era of globalization."

In addition to fostering debate, the institute will offer courses and workshops on workers' rights, unions and development as well as research services, drawing on the expertise of Cornell faculty and staff members, among them: senior extension associates Lee Adler, Sally Alvarez and Maria Figueroa; Lois Gray, the Jean Mc Kelvey-Alice Grant Professor of Labor Management Relations Emerita; Professor Richard Hurd, director, Labor Studies; Harry Katz, the Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining; Professors Sarosh Kuruvilla and Lowell Turner; Rosemary Batt, the Alice H. Cook Professor of Women and Work; Kate Bronfenbrenner, director, Labor Education Research; Lance Compa, senior lecturer; Maria Cook, associate professor; and Stuart Basefsky, senior reference librarian and director of the Institute for Workplace Studies News Bureau.