IWS briefing, Winter 2001 Volume 1 Issue 1

[Excerpt] A newsletter on workplace issues and research from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University

IWS Issue Brief - Collective Bargaining 101: The Trauma Over Health Care

IWScollectivebargaing.pdf: 1324 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

IWS Issue Brief - Wanted: Jobs

IWS20042.pdf: 294 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

IWS Issue Brief - Where in the World Is Your Job Going?

Let\u27s say you have a job processing credit card receipts, answering calls to a customer hotline, reading X-rays, or writing software code. Then one day the boss announces the facility is closing and you, along with all your co-workers, will be laid off. Shortly after, you learn from a news report in the local paper that workers in India are now performing the tasks that used to be handled in your office. In the article the company explained its decision to “offshore” jobs by noting the sizeable gap between the wages earned by its former employees in America and those earned by workers in that far away country

IWS Issue Brief - The Good, the Bad, and Wal-Mart

Today, the nation’s largest company and number one employer would have Americans believe that its interests are synonymous with the public interest. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a retailing behemoth with more than 3,700 locations in the U.S., 1.2 million employees, and annual domestic sales of $228 billion stands as consumers’ best friend. With unparalleled purchasing power and marketplace heft, Wal-Mart prides itself on driving down costs all the way through the smallest supplier to ensure the lowest prices on everything from electronics to clothing to house wares to edibles. Wal-Mart also takes credit for stimulating economic development, creating jobs, and filling local coffers with sales and property tax revenues through decisions to locate stores in rural communities, small cities and suburbs, and struggling urban neighborhoods. But there’s a contrary view gaining currency across the land; that is, what’s good for Wal-Mart is bad for America. Skepticism about Wal-Mart ranges from concern about low wages and suspect workplace practices to perceived threats to the ongoing viability of communities’ social and economic infrastructure once the big box store comes to town

Bridging the Gap: Training Needs Assessment of the Immigrant Workforce in Onondaga County, NY

[Excerpt] This report addresses one small facet of the skills dilemma facing Onondaga County; that is, can the growing immigrant/refugee population in Syracuse satisfy local employers’ demand for labor? With support from a grant provided by the Economic Development Administration (U.S. Department of Commerce) University Center at Cornell University, members of the ILR School’s Extension faculty interviewed employers,immigrants and other English-as-a-secondlanguage (ESL) workforce newcomers, service providers, labor unions, and government planners during the winter of 2007 to assess the training needs of the county’s immigrant and ESL workforce. Our research was facilitated and aided by the Onondaga County Office of Economic Development

IWS Issue Brief - Proposed Changes in Overtime Rules

IWSProposed.pdf: 363 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

IWS briefing, Winter 2005 Volume 5 Issue 1

[Excerpt] A newsletter on workplace issues and research from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University

IWS Issue Brief - Wages to Live By...Or Not

[Excerpt] There is no single or simple solution to the poverty and income inequality quagmire. Effecting policy change at the national level would require the type of macroeconomic strategies that are likely to engender fierce opposition and stonewalling tactics. And yet, criticism of the economic status quo, in which capital begets more capital and wage earners struggle to become, or remain, middle class, is growing louder. Some politicians are beginning to take notice and socio-economic policies may yet be devised to mitigate the worst of the excesses. In the meantime, progressive activists see more opportunity to make a difference at the local level, where the living wage movement is indeed making strides. Linking the cause with other hot-button issues that play out locally, including the renewal of American cities large and small, economic development and new jobs, privatization of government services, and grassroots empowerment, enables proponents to rally support for the living wage agenda. Whether the living wage movement eventually becomes a national force that seriously dents our poverty statistics remains an open question

IWS Issue Brief - The Disappearing Pension Act

IWS20043.pdf: 1066 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020