Huffington Post, April 17, 2012, Tuesday

Huffington Post

April 17, 2012, Tuesday

Huffington Post (full article)

Equal Pay Day: It's Time to Close the Earnings Gap

To be sure, many college-educated women, often partnered to similarly educated men, have been among those who have risen into the upper income reaches. Yet, of the top twenty occupations for women in 2008, only two require degrees beyond high school -- nurses and school teachers -- neither of which fall in the high earning category of possible professions. Moreover, as economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn have shown, the gender wage gap cannot be dismissed simply as women's "choice" for lower paid professions. Whether at the high or low end of the pay spectrum, women's compensation lags behind men's. Neither occupation nor experience alone explain the persistent earnings divide.

Marketplace, April 16, 2012, Monday

Marketplace

April 16, 2012, Monday

Marketplace (full report)

Supreme Court enters decades-old overtime debate

Marc Bayard heads the Worker Institute at Cornell. He says, yeah, five minutes on email off hours is no big deal. But he worries about workers who are expected to be available online all the time.

Marc Bayard: If people are expected to do the work, then they should get paid. And for a number of workers, that seems to not be the case, and I think that’s an alarming trend.

North Jersey.com. April 12, 2012, Thursday

North Jersey.com

April 12, 2012, Thursday

North Jersey.com (full article)

Port Authority moves to curb unions' bargaining powers

Lee Adler, a faculty member of Cornell University’s ILR School who teaches public sector collective bargaining, said the Port Authority statement was “double-talk.” He reviewed the language in the resolution at The Record’s request.

“It sounds to me that they were essentially trying to eliminate the opportunity for union employees to have a voice in the way health care is administered, while trying to make the public think that collective bargaining will remain the same,” he said. He noted that Cuomo has “claimed he has no intention of harming public employees’ right to collective bargaining.”

PolitiFact, April 11, 2012, Wednesday

PolitiFact

April 11, 2012, Wednesday

PolitiFact (full article)

Keystone pipeline to employ 20,000

News accounts and independent analyses have explored other shortcomings of TransCanada’s figures. A study released September 2011 by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute determined that the 20,000 jobs figure is "not substantiated."

Inside Higher Ed, April 9, 2012, Monday

Inside Higher Ed

April 9, 2012, Monday

Inside Higher Ed (full article)

Tuition Model Quietly Spreading

Ronald G. Ehrenberg agreed. The director of Cornell's Higher Education Research Institute, Ehrenberg said community colleges were likely to go the route many four-year colleges take, which is typically to add an extra fee for high-cost majors. The University of Kentucky, for example, charges a fee of $460 per semester for nursing, a 10.7 percent increase over the in-state semester tuition of $4,305, the survey found.

WorldatWork's workspan magazine, April 2012

WorldatWork's workspan magazine

April 2012

An monthly column in workspan® applying scholarly research to the "real world" by ICS Director Kevin Hallock.

Why Do We Tip?
Here’s a tip: everyone gives “bonus pay”

Waste & Recycling News, April 2012

Waste & Recycling News

April 2012

Waste & Recycling News (full article)

Overlook safety at your peril

“Sometimes, composting is a facility that people have kind of overlooked, haven’t thought about this issue at all or never envisioned it was a big deal,” said Nellie Brown, a certified industrial hygienist and director of Workplace Health and Safety Programs for Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “After all, ‘I’m making piles of things, moving them around. How bad can that be?’"

Insurance News Net, March 23, 2012, Friday

Insurance News Net

March 23, 2012, Friday

Insurance News Net (full article)

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Hearing

SHRM has collaborated with the Cornell University ILR School Employment and Disability Institute on a research study about organizational policies and practices related to employing people with disabilities. This series of research findings also analyzes what metrics organizations track for all employees and employees with disabilities and any barriers organizations experience with employment or advancement for people with disabilities. The survey of more than 600 HR professional respondents will be released in three parts: 1) Recruitment and Hiring, 2) Training, and 3) Retention and Advancement.

Time Magazine, April 9, 2012, Monday

Time Magazine

April 9, 2012, Monday

Time Magazine

Is becoming a lawyer a bad investment?

As Linda Barrington, managing director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, puts it, "When this recession hit, the supply of lawyers shifts out because more people want to go to law school to avoid the recession." When these lawyers eventually reach the market, though, they depress wages. So law-school applications retreat until demand shifts out, and the cycle repeats.

The problem for lawyers today is that they are in really deep shift. "You don't want to be in the last group of students who sort of say, 'Look at how much money you make. Let's go to law school,'" says Kevin Hallock, another Cornell labor economist. That's where the current group stands. The retrenching of Wall Street has severely dented demand for lawyers. There may even be a structural shift underway, as technology replaces legal talent. You don't need a lawyer at $2oo an hour to read through 1o,ooo e-mails when software can find what you need in 10 seconds.

Huffington Post, April 4, 2012, Wednesday

Huffington Post

April 4, 2012, Wednesday

Huffinton Post (full article)

Expanding Title VII to Cover Union Organizing

And that's the point. Contemporary American businesses show little compunction at breaking the central pillar of American labor relations, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and firing workers who express a desire for representation. Terminate a few prominent union supports, let fear keep the rest of the workforce in check, and let the vast majority of profits flow to management and shareholders, instead of to the workers who create them. A recent study by Kate Bronfennbrenner of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, shows that employees are fired in more than one in three union organizing drives. And that may be an underestimate. By Bronfenbrenner's accounting less than half of unfair labor practices (firings, wage cuts, harassment, and surveillance) are reported, often because the remaining employees fear further reprisals.

Iowa City Press, April 2, 2012, Monday

Iowa City Press

April 2, 2012, Monday

Iowa City Press (full article)

To raise labor standards, foster immigrants' rights

Saving good working class jobs is a challenge for Americans. We cannot meet that challenge without addressing what some call “imm-ployment” law and policy — where immigration and employment meet, intertwine and interact.

Lance Compa teaches labor and employment law at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y., and is author of the 2005 Human Rights Watch report Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in the U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants.”

The Chief, April 2, 2012, Monday

The Chief

April 2, 2012, Monday

The Chief (full article)

TWU Leader Won't Disown 'Occupy' for Fare-Beating

Ken Margolies, a labor specialist on the extension faculty at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said that although the protests took place during contract negotiations, it was unlikely the union would be punished under the Taylor Law for the actions of a few anonymous members.

“They’d have to show that this was being done with the union’s knowledge and that the union could stop it and didn’t,” he said. “It would be hard to enforce. They’d have to show that this was really a ruse.”

The Journal News, April 1, 2012, Sunday

The Journal News

April 1, 2012, Sunday

The Journal News (full article)

At Westchester Medical Center, executives get raises, others lose jobs

Cuomo’s order doesn’t prevent nonprofits from paying high salaries, but they won’t be able to use state money such as Medicaid to do it.

“If they simply can’t use state money, then it’s not going to mean much,” said Kevin Hallock, an economics professor with Cornell University’s Institute for Compensation Studies. “Hospitals have so much other revenue from private payers and insurance companies.”

Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, April 2012

Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin

April 2012

Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin (full article)

Health Care Expenditure Among People With Disabilities

Workplace health-promotion programs have the potential to reduce health care expenditures, especially among people with disabilities. Utilizing nationally representative survey data, the authors provide estimates for health care expenditures related to secondary conditions, obesity, and health behaviors among working-age people with disabilities. Furthermore, by computing the expenditures attributable to secondary conditions, obesity, and health behaviors, the authors emphasize the importance of disability-inclusive workplace health-promotion programs for employees with disabilities.

By:
Arun Karpur, Cornell University, New York City, NY, USA
Susanne M. Bruyère, Cornell University, New York City, NY, USA

Reluctant Habits, March 27, 2012, Tuesday

Reluctant Habits

March 27, 2012, Tuesday

Reluctant Habits (full article/audio)

The Bat Segundo Show: Louis Hyman

Louis Hyman appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #443. He is most recently the author of Borrow.

STL Today, March 25, 2012, Sunday

STL Today


March 25, 2012, Sunday


STL Today (full article)

Colleges more often hiring part-timers


"The shift away from full-time faculty is just something — except at the richest institutions — that is going to continue to occur," said Ronald Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell University Higher Education Research Institute. "That's a cost savings thing. It's as simple as that."