The Guardian, November 7, 2013, Thursday

The Guardian

November 7, 2013, Thursday

The Guardian (full article)

Equal pay day: a plea for transparency

So, if it's as simple as publishing salary guidelines on your company's intranet, why isn't everyone doing it? In an article for Inc, Samuel Bacharach, professor of labour management, points out that research from the '60s and '70s tended to indicate that when asked to estimate their boss's and peers' salaries, people would underestimate what their boss earned and overestimate their peers. Whether that's still the case is uncertain but, given human nature's tendency to assume the worst, it seems unlikely that we're assuming we out earn the rest of our team. And if we knew that we did, would that make us happier employees?

Larger organisations could learn from Bluffer, particularly if they want to increase engagement among employees. A study by Elena Belogolovsky and Peter Bamberger found that pay inequality negatively affected the performance of workers, particularly those with a lower tolerance for inequality generally. However, their recommendations shied away from publicly announcing what everyone in your company is earning. Instead, they found that simply being more open about salary bandings and what employees had to achieve in terms of performance improves engagement.

Business Insider, November 7, 2013, Thursday

Business Insider

November 7, 2013, Thursday

Business Insider (full article)

The 10 Best Professors at Cornell University

#1 Christina Homrighouse, Industrial and Labor Relations

"Prof H. was so interested in getting everyone onboard and learning that it was refreshing to wake up that early and go to class! She really has an interest in students learning material...other professors could learn alot from her! If I weren't graduating I would take all of her classes..."

"She's the coolest ILR professor. She's always willing to help...in fact, she forced students to do the extra credit...and going to her for help isn't intimidating...she understands some peeps may be a bit tech stupid. Overall, she rocks! Definitely take her!"

Bloomberg, November 7, 2013, Thursday

Bloomberg

November 7, 2013, Thursday

Bloomberg (full article)

Obama Ally Poised to Lead UAW in Midst of Organizing Push

“The UAW is facing some very serious problems in terms of its long-term survival,” Art Wheaton, a labor expert at Cornell University, said in a telephone interview. “Organizing the transplants down south is critical. If you can get a foothold in some of the assembly plants in the South, then you can start organizing the suppliers to that assembly plant.”

AOL Jobs, November 6, 2013, Wednesday

AOL Jobs

November 6, 2013, Wednesday

AOL Jobs (full article)

Three Groups of Female Workers Outearn Their Male Counterparts

Why are women outearning men?: As a general rule, when there are more women than men in a field the wage gap tends to be smaller, as Linda Barrington, the executive director for the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University's Industrial Labor Relations School, told AOL Jobs. Such a plurality of women workers also helps to undermine bias against women in both pay and career advancement, she said.

New York Daily News, November 4, 2013, Monday

New York Daily News

November 4, 2013, Monday

New York Daily News (full article)

Many employers still reluctant to hire blind workers

Yet blind people remain largely unwanted in the U.S. workplace, despite technological advances that dramatically boost their capabilities. Only about 24 percent of working-age Americans with visual disabilities had full-time jobs as of 2011, according to Cornell University's Employment and Disability Institute...

"We need to make sure blind people don't think, 'Society doesn't want me,' and stop trying," he said. "If a person gives up hope of finding a suitable job, it's a terrible waste of human resources. It's terrible for people to live in poverty simply because of public misunderstanding." About 31 percent of working-age people with visual impairments live below the poverty line, roughly double the overall national rate, according to Cornell's Employment and Disability Institute.

The Boston Globe, November 2, 2013, Saturday

The Boston Globe

November 2, 2013, Saturday

The Boston Globe (full article)

For online professors, a celebrity side effect

“There are always some students who are glassy-eyed, but it’s never 100 percent staring back at you with no response,” said Louis Hyman, an assistant professor of labor relations, law, and history at Cornell University, and the co-teacher of “American Capitalism: A History.”

His MOOC is scheduled to run next spring on EdX, an online education platform launched by MIT and Harvard in 2012. The “weirdest” part of the experience for him, Hyman added, is delivering his talks barefoot because the studio lights make the room so hot. “I never thought I’d be lecturing on the railroad strike of 1877 without shoes on,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2013, Tuesday

The Wall Street Journal

October 29, 2013, Tuesday

The Wall Street Journal (full article)

First-of-Its-Kind Online Master's Draws Wave of Applicants

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with its MOOC partner edX, is starting a course sequence called the XSeries, For up to $700, students will be able to take a test and earn a "verified certificate" in subjects like computer science and supply-chain management.

"I think this is symptomatic of a lot of what we're going to be seeing in the future," said Ronald Ehrenberg, the director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute.

USA Today, October 23, 2013, Wednesday

USA Today

October 23, 2013, Wednesday

USA Today (full article)

Workers with disabilities paid 10% less

"So you might imagine someone taking a job for $40,000 with health insurance or a job for $60,000 without health insurance," Kevin Hallock, director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell, said during a presentation at a conference on disability employment Wednesday in Arlington, Va.

"Employers need to be looking at wage gaps in their own workforce," said Linda Barrington, executive director of Cornell's Institute for Compensation Studies. "A lot of companies do that for gender, they do that for race, ethnicity. People with disabilities — and (the) pay gap for people with disabilities need to be included in every company's checklist as they go through and say 'do we have fair pay practices.'"

KGO 810 News, October 23, 2013, Wednesday

KGO 810 News

October 23, 2013, Wednesday

KGO 810 News (radio interview)

BART Analysis

Ken Margolies, Senior Associate at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations talks with Jason Middleton on the BART strike impacts.

Bloomberg, October 18, 2013, Friday

Bloomberg

October 18, 2013, Friday

Bloomberg (full article)

States Clamping Down on Workers Mislabeled as Contractors

“There was money to be had,” Linda Donahue, senior extension associate with The Worker Institute at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in an interview. “The success at identifying those employers has led to pretty substantial revenue for the states.”

Marketplace Business, October 18, 2013, Friday

Marketplace Business

October 18, 2013, Friday

Marketplace Business (full article)

A day in the life of a Federal mediator for the BART strike

David Lipsky, a professor of dispute resolution at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations,  says mediators like Cohen have to instill trust in bothsides of a dispute. “He’s an excellent people person, one of the best I know in fact,” Lipsky says.

But, according to Lipsky, mediators also have to be experts in the field where the fight is taking place. "You have to know a lot of complicated subjects, [like] pension plans, retirement plans, healthcare plans."

New York Times, October 10, 2013, Thursday

New York Times

October 10, 2013, Thursday

New York Times (full article)

VW Plant Opens Doors to Union and Dispute

“If the company set up a representation system like that, a union would challenge it and they could probably win their argument that it’s a company-dominated union,” said Richard Hurd, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. Such a union set up by the company would violate American labor law, he said.