Cornell’s hotel school starts labor institute

ITHACA — The Cornell University School of Hotel Administration (SHA) announced it has launched a new institute aimed at understanding and improving labor and employment relations in the hospitality industry.

The new institute, called the Cornell Institute for Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations (CIHLER), says it will provide a platform for students, employers, employees, unions, and their advocates to learn about the relationship between labor and management.

“The school has offered outstanding courses and roundtables in hospitality labor and employee relations for several years now, and we are delighted to formalize and expand our work in this area with the establishment of the [CIHLER],” Michael D. Johnson, dean and E. M. Statler professor at Cornell’s SHA, said in a news release.

David Sherwyn, professor of law and the John and Melissa Ceriale professor of hospitality human resources at Cornell, will serve as the first CIHLER director for a three-year term.

Sherwyn is also a research fellow at the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University’s School of Law and is of counsel to the law firm of Stokes Roberts & Wagner. From 2006 to 2009, Sherwyn was the director of the Center for Hospitality Research at the SHA. In 2002, Sherwyn created, organized, and hosted the CHR’s first Hospitality Industry Roundtable, according to the release.

Sherwyn’s research interests include discrimination law, arbitration of discrimination lawsuits, and union-management relations, and he has published articles in many scholarly hospitality and law journals, according to Cornell. Prior to joining the SHA faculty, Sherwyn practiced management-side labor and employment law for six years.

“CIHLER will encompass the entire spectrum of hospitality labor and employment relations. Union contracts, implementing the affordable care act, EEOC issues, wage and hour compliance, leadership, and succession planning are just some of the subjects we will be writing about and discussing,” Sherwyn said in the release. “With the help of our partners, we believe that within one year our website we will be a top resource for any information concerning labor and employment relations in the industry.”