Student - Assisted Research Going to Capitol Hill

When ILR Director of Labor Education Research Kate Bronfenbrenner briefs congressional staffers this month on the nation's highest-profile labor issue, she'll rely on the research of students like Donna Ugboaja '10.

"I never thought that I would be part of something like this," Ugboaja said.

"I thought it was just another campus job when I first started, until I learned about how important the work was," she said.

For three years, ILR student researchers and others on Bronfenbrenner's team have been collecting thousands of pages of documentation which track employer behavior during 1,004 union organizing campaigns from 1999 to 2003.

It's expected that what the team has learned will help steer a decision by the U.S. Congress on the proposed Employee Free Choice Act.

Act proponents say the legislation would make it harder for business to unfairly halt unionization through worker intimidation and other tactics.

Opponents of the act include those who vouch for the current organizing system, sanctioned by the National Labor Relations Act.

ILR undergraduates and other researchers working with Bronfenbrenner on the employer behavior project assisted in the design of an 85-question survey and collected documentation which supported survey answers.

The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request for unfair labor practice documents to the National Labor Relations Board.

Researchers also conducted follow-up interviews with union organizers, developed a data base, analyzed statistics and prepared charts and tables for the report, scheduled to be unveiled this week in Washington, D.C., by Bronfenbrenner at a briefing on Capital Hill.

Austin Zwick '09, one of the team’s lead researchers, said, "Before I worked here, I had no idea" what was involved in research.

As a result of his research experience, he said, "I want to work as a researcher or get a Ph.D. in public policy."

The employer behavior project, Zwick said, helped uncover anti-union tactics – everything from forcing a player off the company softball team to harassment to unfair firings.

Troy Pasulka '09, another lead researcher on the project, said, "This is real academic research, the kind few undergraduates have an opportunity to learn.  It's prepared me for a career in labor research."

Students are recruited by Bronfenbrenner for the research jobs and earn $15 an hour.  They typically work five to 15 hours weekly in teams of three or four to accomplish specific goals.

For 15 years, Bronfenbrenner said, she has been hiring between five and 11 research assistants annually.  Many of them are ILR undergraduates.

"My goals is to teach them a wide range of research skills so they can go out in the world and use them," she said.

In the research report which is going to Washington, Bronfenbrenner said, student researchers "worked with me hand in hand every step of the way."

"They are some of the best researchers in the country.  They are incredible," she said.  "I could not have done it without them."