ILR Labor Action Tracker

Our Project

Welcome to the Cornell-ILR Labor Action Tracker. The goal of our project is to provide a comprehensive database of strike and labor protest activity across the United States in order to better inform and support labor movement activists, policymakers, and scholars. We would like to especially thank and acknowledge the ILR School for generous funding to support our project. We also thank the staff at China Labour Bulletin for inspiring and encouraging us to develop the labor action tracker.

We began documenting strikes in late-2020 and labor protests in early-2021. Our database of strikes is most accurate as of 2021. We have a relatively high degree of confidence in our ability to comprehensively capture strike activity. Due to the high number of labor protests across the United States, we aim to provide a general understanding of labor protest activity rather than achieve a complete count. Please note that our map generates the total number of strike and/or labor protest locations, which is more than the total number of individual strikes and/or protests (e.g. a single strike at five locations will appear five times on our map). Information we gather is from public sources and manually inputted into our tracker. Please see our methodology document for a more detailed description of our definitions, protocols, and variables. Follow us on twitter @ILRLaborAction to keep up to date with our project!

For any questions, or to access a spreadsheet version of our project's data, please email Johnnie Kallas at jsk374@cornell.edu.

Current Project Members

Johnnie Kallas

Project Director

Johnnie Kallas is a PhD candidate in the Department of Labor Relations, Law, and History at Cornell University's ILR School. His research focuses on strikes and labor militancy in the United States, with a special interest in healthcare. He also worked as a labor organizer for three years before enrolling in graduate school.

Eli Friedman

Faculty Advisor

Eli Friedman is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of International and Comparative Labor at Cornell University's ILR School. His research focus is on labor politics, labor migration, and urbanization in China.

Deepa Kylasam Iyer

Graduate Research Assistant

Deepa Kylasam Iyer is a PhD student at the Department of International and Comparative Labor at Cornell University's ILR School. Her research focuses on how technology changes the workplace and emerging worker responses in the context of platform-based work.

Kathryn Ritchie

Project Coordinator & Social Media Strategist

Kathryn Ritchie (BSILR '24) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since August 2021, assisting with finding and classifying strike and protest data, project communications and social media presence, and team coordination. Kathryn has previously interned with Giffords and is planning on working in the labor movement as a representative or researcher.

Xinying Zou

Graduate Research Assistant

Xinying Zou (MLA '23) has worked on the ILR Action Tracker since September 2022, assisting with finding and classifying strike data. Xinying is planning on pursuing a Ph.D. in sociology related to employment after her graduation.

Tara Gideon

Research Assistant

Tara Gideon (BSILR '23) has worked on the ILR Action Tracker since August 2021, assisting with finding and classifying protest data. Tara has previously worked in the service industry and is planning on pursuing a career in human resources after her graduation.

Jasmine Fernandez

Research Assistant

Jasmine Fernandez (BSILR '23) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since August 2022, identifying and logging protest data. Jasmine was previously a research assistant with UNI Global and a Union Scholar with AFSCME and plans on working in the labor movement after graduation.

Carla Gaveglia

Research Assistant

Carla Gaveglia (BSILR '24) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since August 2022, assisting with finding and classifying protest data. Carla was previously a research intern with the United Federation of Teachers and is planning on pursuing a career in public relations and marketing.

Former Project Members

Dana Trentalange

Social Media Strategist & Project Coordinator

Dana Trentalange (MILR '21) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker from day one, assisting the team with the data collection process and project coordination. Informed by her time as an organizer with CNA/NNU, she specializes in social media management and content creation for unions and progressive organizations.

Leo Grageda

Research Assistant

Leo Grageda (MILR '22) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since May 2021, assisting with finding and classifying strike and protest data. Leo has previously interned with the Bureau of International Labor Affairs at the US Department of Labor and is planning on working in the labor movement after attending law school.

Angela Bunay

Research Assistant

Angela Bunay (BSILR '24) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since August 2021, assisting with finding and classifying strike and protest data. Angela was previously a research intern with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and is planning on working in the labor movement as an organizer or working as a labor journalist.

Victor Rieman

Research Assistant

Victor Rieman (BSILR '21) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since October 2020, assisting with finding and classifying strike and protest data, as well as helping to develop a system of verification protocols. Victor has previously interned with SEIU 1199 and is planning on working in the labor movement as a researcher or representative.

Ankit Mehta

Research Assistant

Ankit Mehta (Johnson Cornell Tech MBA '21) has worked on the ILR Labor Action Tracker since December 2020, building a logging and visualization system for labor actions happening across the United States.