Kate Bronfenbrenner is the Director of Labor Education Research and a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations where she does teaching and research on union and employer strategies in organizing and bargaining in the global economy. Kate has also done extensive research on the impact of trade policy on employment, wages, and unionization. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty in 1993, Bronfenbrenner was an Assistant Professor in Labor Studies at Penn State University and worked for many years as an organizer and union representative with the United Woodcutters Association in Mississippi and with SEIU in Boston, as well as a welfare rights organizer in Seattle, Washington. Bronfenbrenner, who received her Ph.D. from Cornell in 1993, is the co-author and editor of several books on union strategies including Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital Through Cross Border Campaigns, Union Organizing in the Public Sector: An Analysis of State and Local Elections, Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies, and Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor. She has also published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs on employer and union behavior in public and private sector organizing and first contract campaigns, comprehensive campaigns, union leadership development, women and unions, and global trade and investment policy. Her most recent study on employer behavior in NLRB certification campaigns No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing has played a central role in informing the current debate on the Employee Free Choice Act. Because of her expertise in contemporary labor issues and her research on union and employer behavior in certification election campaigns, Bronfenbrenner has been brought in to testify as an expert witness at Labor Department and Congressional hearings and is frequently quoted in the major news media. Bronfenbrenner has been the recipient of many awards most notably the Labor Research Association's Ernest DeMaio Labor Award in 2009, IRRA’s Outstanding Young Scholar Award, ILR’s 60th Anniversary Outstanding Contribution to Labor Education Award, the Labor Party’s first Karen Silkwood Award in 1998, the New York Labor History Association’s John Commerford Labor Education Award in 2000, the General Mills Foundation Award for Exemplary Undergraduate Teaching in 2003, the Robert N. Stern Mentoring Award in 2007, and was selected to give the 24th Memorial Sefton Lecture at the University of Toronto in 2006. Finally, a central part of Kate’s work is teaching research to young people through employing undergraduate research assistants on her policy research projects. Each year students who have worked with Kate graduate from ILR and go on to research jobs with unions, government or NGOs or to pursue graduate degrees in the social sciences using the qualitative and quantitative research skills they learned working on these studies.
Articles
A War Against Organizing, Articles and Chapters (2009)
[Excerpt] Unless Congress passes serious labor law reform with real penalties, only a small fraction...
Race, Gender, and the Rebirth of Trade Unionism (with Dorian T. Warren), Articles and Chapters (2007)
[Excerpt] Diversity is not the enemy of solidarity. We contend that solidarity can, and must,...
New Unity for Labor? (with Ruth Milkman and Kim Voss), Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History (2005)
From the “Editor’s Introduction”: Within today’s AFL-CIO, a different set of frustrations with the bureaucratic...
Organizing Women: The Nature and Process of Union Organizing Efforts Among U.S. Women Workers Since the mid-1990s, Articles & Chapters (2005)
The relationship between American working women and the U.S. labor movement can neither be easily...
What is Labor’s True Purpose? The Implications of SEIU’s Unite to Win Proposals for Organizing, Articles & Chapters (2005)
[Excerpt] That labor is in a crisis cannot be questioned. While there may be some...
Books
Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital Through Cross-Border Campaigns, Book Samples (2007)
To meet the challenges of globalization, unions must improve their understanding of the changing nature...
Blueprint for Change: A National Assessment of Winning Union Organizing Strategies (with Robert Hickey), Monographs (2003)
In the last seven years the AFL-CIO has put forth an immense effort to facilitate,...
Introduction to Ravenswood: The Steelworkers’ Victory and the Revival of American Labor (with Tom Juravich), Articles and Chapters (1999)
[Excerpt] When the Ravenswood Aluminum Company locked out seventeen hundred workers on October 31, 1990,...
Contributions to Books
The U.S. Experience of Organising in the Context of the Global Economy, Articles & Chapters (2008)
Excerpt] There is no question that some unions, such as the UAW in auto-transplants and...
Capital Mobility and Job Loss: Corporate Restructuring, Production Shifts, and Outsourcing (with Stephanie Luce), Articles & Chapters (2007)
[Excerpt] This chapter examines the impact of corporate restructuring and global outsourcing on employment in...
Conclusion to Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital Through Cross-Border Campaigns, Articles and Chapters (2007)
[Excerpt] What the cases in this book show is that the world's unions have a...
Introduction to Global Unions: Challenging Transnational Capital Through Cross-Border Campaigns, Articles and Chapters (2007)
[Excerpt] The chapters in this book make clear that unions have the capability to build...
Significant Victories: An Analysis of Union First Contracts (with Tom Juravich and Robert Hickey), Articles & Chapters (2006)
[Excerpt] After two decades of massive employment losses in heavily unionized sectors of the economy...
Unpublished Papers
The Empirical Case for Streamlining the NLRB Certification Process: The Role of Date of Unfair Labor Practice Occurrence (with Dorian Warren), Working Papers (2011)
[Excerpt] One of the long held performance objectives of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)...
No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing, Research Studies and Reports (2009)
[Excerpt] This study is a comprehensive analysis of employer behavior in representation elections supervised by...
Comprehensive Strategy: The Key to Successful Organizing, Articles and Chapters (2006)
[Excerpt] For the last two decades, organizing has continued to be the central focus of...
The Changing Nature of Corporate Global Restructuring: The Impact of Production Shifts on Jobs in the US, China, and Around the Globe (with Stephanie Luce), Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History (2004)
Despite the increasing amount of trade between China and the US, and the increase in...
Overcoming the Challenges to Organizing in Manufacturing (with Robert Hickey), Research Studies and Reports (2002)
[Excerpt] By 2002, the decline of organizing in the U.S. manufacturing sector has reached crisis...
Presentations
Prepared Statement for the National Mediation Board, National Mediation Board Rule Change Hearings (2009)
Testimony before the NMB hearings on the proposed rule change to the RLA that recommend...
Union Organizing Among Professional Women Workers, Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History (2005)
"Women in professional and technical occupations fill a unique niche in the US workforce and...
Lasting Victories: Successful Union Strategies for Winning First Contracts, Conference Proceedings, Presentations, and Speeches (1996)
[Excerpt] These studies leave no doubt that employers have at their disposal a myriad of...
Seeds of Resurgence: The Promise of Organizing in the Public and Private Sectors (with Tom Juravich), Conference Proceedings, Presentations, and Speeches (1994)
[Excerpt] No revival of our American labor movement will be possible without massive new organizing....