Student Events

The Dindigul Agreement stands as a pioneering framework designed to eliminate gender-based violence and harassment in apparel factories. Established among global brands (H&M, Gap Inc., and PVH Corp), an international NGO (Global Labor Justice), a union alliance (Asia Floor Wage Alliance), a local union (Tamilnadu Textile and Common Labor Union), and an Indian apparel manufacturer (Eastman Exports), this agreement is widely recognized as a potential model for the apparel industry, where a majority of employees are young women and gender-based violence remains a persistent challenge. As the agreement reaches its conclusion, this webinar from the Cornell ILR Global Labor Institute will present the first official evaluation and explore a crucial question: Is the Dindigul Agreement achieving its intended impact? Our panel will examine the effectiveness of this collaborative effort between factory management and unions in addressing gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace and discuss its implications for the broader apparel industry. Register Now! What You'll Learn How the Dindigul Agreement has performed and what metrics define its successKey factors driving the agreement's effectiveness and best practices for implementationStrategies for adapting and scaling this model across the apparel industryWays this framework can strengthen corporate human rights due diligence effortsEvidence-based insights into how the agreement empowers women to combat gender-based violence both in the workplace and their communities Speakers: Sarosh Kuruvilla Professor of Industrial Relations and Asian Studies Cornell ILR School Kelly Fay Rodríguez Former Special Representative for International Labor Affairs U.S. Department of State Jason Judd Executive Director, Global Labor Institute Cornell ILR School Krishanti Dharmaraj Former Independent Chair, Dindigul Agreement Oversight Committee

Gordon Hanson Community Colleges and Regional Labor Market Adjustment Abstract: The economic performance of US local labor markets has diverged sharply in recent decades. Regions with more highly educated workers have had strong earnings and employment growth, while former industrial regions have seen manufacturing jobs disappear and elevated joblessness become endemic. Although the causes of regional job loss are now well understood, why regions adjust poorly to adverse shocks is not. We examine the role of community colleges in regional workforce development and labor market adjustment. Community colleges provide the vast majority of career and technical education to those not attaining a four-year degree. First, we show that whereas the demand for training by community colleges is countercyclical (enrollments rise following projected local job loss in manufacturing), instructional funding is not (consistent with community-college funding formulas that are based on lagged enrollment and current state tax revenues). Second, even without countercyclicality in community-college funding, degrees in career and technical fields (but not in academic fields) expand following adverse labor demand shocks. Thus, the failure of state budgets to accommodate contraction-induced increases in demand for training does not prevent colleges from delivering training (partly because of increased federal grants to low-income students). Third, we explore how career and technical degrees may aid local adjustment to adverse shocks and why colleges appear to vary in their training capacity. Gordon Hanson (Harvard and NBER) and Harry Holzer (Georgetown and Brookings)​​​​​​​

Some of the most pressing issues facing low-wage immigrant workers of color in the United States include persistent forms of disrespect and abuses of power — situations that are the direct result of U.S. policies that produce and sustain poor working conditions and job instability. This topic is addressed in "Legalized Inequalities: Immigration and Race in the Low-Wage Workplace," a new book coauthored by ILR School researchers Kati L. Griffith, Shannon Gleeson, and Patricia Campos-Medina, and Darlène Dubuisson of the University of California, Berkeley. Drawing on interviews with over 300 Haitian and Central American low-wage workers in the U.S. and with more than 50 worker advocates, the researchers reveal how contemporary U.S. labor and employment law, immigration policy, and enduring racism work in tandem to keep workers’ wages low, lock them into substandard working conditions, and minimize opportunities for change. Join us as we discuss not only the crushing consequences of U.S. policy on low-wage immigrant workers of color but also the ways in which many of these workers reclaim their dignity in the face of these obstacles. Register Now! What You'll Learn How U.S. labor and employment laws and immigration regulations intersect in the work lives of immigrantsThe ways in which the legacies of legalized racism shape immigrant worker experiencesHow low-wage immigrant workers manage to improve their workplaces through individual and sometimes collective acts of resistanceWhat policy changes and organizing strategies can reshape the low-wage workplace Speakers: Kate L. Griffith Jean McKelvey-Alice Grant Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Diversity, and Faculty Development Cornell ILR School Shannon Gleeson Edmund Ezra Day Professor, Labor Relations, Law and History Cornell ILR School Patricia Campos-Medina Senior Extension Associate Faculty and the Executive Director of the Worker Institute Cornell ILR School Darlène Dubuisson Assistant Professor of Caribbean Studies University of California, Berkeley