Book talk, film screening, keynote to highlight Union Days

With a multipart theme of labor unions, immigration rights and racial justice, the ILR School's annual Union Days event series will offer the Cornell community an opportunity throughout April to meet labor leaders and gain understanding of current labor issues.

Organized and sponsored by the ILR School's Worker Institute, the series will feature a book talk, documentary film screening, keynote address and panel discussion.

"I look forward to Union Days every year," said Alex Colvin, Ph.D. '99, the Kenneth F. Kahn '69 Dean and the Martin F. Scheinman '75, MS '76, Professor of Conflict Resolution.

The book talk will look back on the career and family history of Bill Gould, LLB '61, an influential professor of law at Stanford, who was a key figure in ending the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike.

A screening of the film "Without Shade, Without Rest" will examine health and safety issues for farmworkers in Florida.

The keynote event will feature Safanya Searcy, a union leader, sharing how her career led from running union organizing campaigns to teaching others how to lead those campaigns.

A panel discussion will examine low-wage work, inequality and policies shaping today's labor landscape.

All events are free and open to the public.

Those Who Travail: A Book Talk with Professor Bill Gould- April 9 at 4:30 p.m., Ives Hall 281, Doherty Meeting Space (hybrid): Gould, professor of law emeritus at Stanford Law School, will reflect on race, unions and the changing world of work. His discussion will draw from his books, including "Those Who Travail and Are Heavy Laden: Memoir of a Labor Lawyer" (2025, WorcesterPolytechnic Institute Press) and "Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor" (2002, Stanford University Press), and offer insights from his long career in labor law and mediation.

The event will end with a Q&A, book signing and refreshments. Books will be available for purchase from Buffalo Street Books.

Without Shade, Without Rest- April 14 at 4:30 p.m., Ives Hall 105 (in-person): Focusing on the fight for protection from the heat for farmworkers in Florida, this event features a screening of the documentary "Without Shade, Without Rest" (2025, Six Eye Films) and a panel discussion.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a food donation for the local farmworker community. The screening is being co-sponsored by the Cornell Organization for Labor Action and the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

You Can't Win What You Don't Build: What 17 Years in the Labor Movement Have Taught Me- April 20 at 4:30 p.m., Statler Hall 398 (in-person): Searcy, director of unionwide capacity at the Service Employees International Union, will speak about lessons from the field and pivotal moments that shaped her career.

Legalized Inequalities: Immigration and Race in the Low-Wage Workplace- April 24 at 2 p.m., Ives Hall 105 (hybrid): Union Days' final event will examine low-wage work, inequality and policies shaping today's labor landscape in a panel discussion with the four authors of "Legalized Inequalities: Immigration and Race in the Low-Wage Workplace" (2025, Russell Sage Foundation). The book draws on interviews with more than 300 low-wage Haitian and Central American workers and advocates to show how U.S. policies produce and sustain job instability and insecurity.

The panelists will be Kate Griffith, the Jean McKelvey-Alice Grant Professor of Labor-Management Relations at ILR; Shannon Gleeson, the Edmund Ezra Day Professor at ILR; Patricia Campos-Medina '96, MPA '97, executive director of ILR's Worker Institute; and Darlène Dubuisson, assistant professor of Caribbean Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Union Days began in 1988 as a daylong program designed to help students learn about the labor movement, develop skills sought by union recruiters and explore career opportunities.

Tonya Engst is a writer for the ILR School.