Columbia University Labor Lab

INCITE @ Columbia University

Columbia Labor Lab leverages the tools of social science to understand and strengthen efforts to rebuild the economic and political power of workers.

We work in partnership with unions and worker associations, affording us access to unique data and providing us opportunities to directly test the implications that follow from our work. With our partners, we directly apply state-of-the-art research methods in the social sciences: large-scale surveys, interviews, field experimental designs, administrative data linking and analysis, and machine learning.

Ongoing partnerships

Healthcare Union

In partnership with a healthcare labor union, we are evaluating the causal impact of labor organizing on health and labor market outcomes in the healthcare sector.

Communication Workers of America

In collaboration with Communication Workers of America, we are evaluating the impact of Runaway Inequality political trainings on subsequent union and political activities and beliefs.

United for Respect

In collaboration with United for Respect, we’re using an experimental design to evaluate the impact of a new form of online organization—facilitated online groups—on those working in low-wage, precarious retail jobs.