Responses by workers and their advocates to challenges in the gig economy will be explored in an April 27-28 conference organized by The Worker Institute at Cornell ILR. Bringing together U.S. and European academics, union representatives, worker organizations and legal advocates, Workers’ Rights in the Gig Economy: Policy and Organizing Responses to Precarious Work will be held at the Weill Cornell Medicine’s Belfer Research Building in New York City.

Panelists and roundtable participants will look at the impacts of on-demand, gig or precarious work on job quality; responses by unions, worker centers and worker cooperatives; law enforcement; policy innovations; new partnerships and alliances; and research.

Kevin Hallock, the ILR School’s Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean and Joseph R. Rich ’80 Professor, and Ileen DeVault, professor of labor history and academic director of The Worker Institute, will open the conference.

Keynote speakers will be Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, and New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

See the entire schedule of panels.

Maria Figueroa, director of Worker Institute Labor and Policy Research, and Sanjay Pinto, Worker Institute fellow, will lead the discussion at the concluding session. Veronica Avila, researcher at Restaurant Opportunities Center United, will also participate.

Mary Catt is assistant director of communications at the ILR School.