Samuel B. Bacharach, director of the ILR School's R. Brinkley Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies, and Valerie McKinney, a research associate and doctoral student in ILR, are involved in conducting the Cornell Workplace Study in New York City.
It's no accident that Samuel B. Bacharach, professor of organizational behavior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and director of ILR's R. Brinkley Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies, has decided to open a New York City branch of the institute.
"The greatest social science laboratory we have is right in our own backyard," Bacharach said, referring to New York City.
The expansion to New York City for the Smithers Institute, which will retain its Ithaca campus office, has been heartily endorsed by ILR School Dean Edward Lawler.
"There is no denying the importance of the city to the ILR School. New York is where many of the school's key constituents are," said Lawler, noting that it is home to headquarters of the major unions, corporations and associations. "One of our goals is to attain a stronger academic and research presence in New York. The Smithers move and the work it's undertaking in New York is a key move in that direction."
The institute was founded at Cornell in 1986 through an endowment established by the late R. Brinkley Smithers, an investment banker and recovered alcoholic whose lifelong, worldwide support of the prevention and treatment of substance abuse earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Aside from its research activities, the Smithers Institute helps labor and management address issues of substance abuse in the workplace and assists in creating education programs for labor, management and public policy-makers.
The institute's mission, therefore, makes it a welcome addition to the ILR Extension Division's Metropolitan District Office in Manhattan, which is directed by Esta Bigler. Smithers' neighbors in the office the Human Resources Program, the Construction Industry Program, the Institute for Women and Work, among others all are certain to benefit from the institute's new location, ILR officials say.
"Smithers' presence in New York enables ILR School's extension staff and its resident faculty to develop a more beneficial relationship," said Francine Moccio, director of the Institute for Women and Work. "The move helps bring closer together the extension staff, with its expertise in program development and understanding of the needs of labor, management and other special employment groups, and the resident faculty, with its knowledge of academic research and publishing."
Bacharach agrees. "There needs to be an integration of the three critical university functions extension, research and education," he said.
While distance learning technologies can transport a student and teacher anywhere in the world, Bacharach said nothing can replace being in New York, especially for what promises to be one of the institute's greatest undertakings: Bacharach and his research associates currently are conducting the "Cornell Workplace Study," which, when completed, is expected to be the largest and most comprehensive study on workplace stress and substance abuse.
"To do work on substance abuse and how it affects the workplace, we need to be here, in New York; we need to have a relationship with our constituencies," he said. "We want to be accessible to our survey population. The last thing we wanted was to be perceived as a bunch of scientists in white lab coats coming down from Cornell to scrutinize the workplace."
Still more than a year away from announcing any findings, the researchers are surveying more than 5,000 union workers from numerous industries retail, manufacturing, utility, health care to ascertain information on the causes of workplace stress and the toll it takes on the body and mind. Bacharach is working in collaboration with Professor William Sonnenstuhl, the institute's associate director; Peter Bamberger, senior research associate; Colleen Clauson, institute administrator; and graduate students Valerie McKinney and Fil Sanna. No issue is off-limits. Researchers want to know about such sensitive issues as drug and alcohol use as well as the employees' health and relationships with supervisors.
Being in New York City has enabled Bacharach to have face-to-face meetings regularly with union leaders whose support and cooperation are vital to the study's success. During one afternoon last spring, Bacharach met with Ida Torres, an officer of the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union Council; Donald Perks, director of the Steamfitting Industry Assistance Program; Joe Conaty and Alice Ronne of the Apprentice Training School of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 15; and Joseph Flaherty, business manager of the Utility Workers, Local 1-2, which represents workers for Consolidated Edison, New York City's power company.
"These relationships and our continual follow-up with these individuals are vital to the study's success and impact," he said. "But beyond the survey, these relationships hold the promise of opportunities for further research and educational development for our students."
Work on the study has come from various parties. Working closely with Professor Clete Daniel, director of the ILR Undergraduate Internship Program, Bacharach leads a New York City seminar for undergraduates that directly involves them in the ongoing research activities of the institute.
For graduate students McKinney and Sanna, the survey has been an all-consuming experience, necessitating a move to New York for each so they can carry on their research responsibilities.
"Having to get a random sample of 450 New York City mail handlers is the best education I can have on research and design," Sanna said.
"This study hopefully will enable us to learn more about helping behaviors and what organizations can do to help workers cope with the stress of the workplace," McKinney said.
Union members who take the time to complete the extensive 40-page survey believe the results will be motivation for both management and labor to make changes in the workplace.
"There have been numerous cursory studies about the workplace, but none has examined it with such depth, with such concern from the researchers," said John A. Barry, who works as an emergency medical technician in New York. "I believe results from this study will be the impetus for changes in the workplace that can lessen the level of stress for all."
Putting research into practice has been a hallmark of the Smithers Institute. The institute's 1994 study on member assistance programs (MAPs), which Bacharach co-authored with Bamberger and Sonnenstuhl, advocated increasing the role of peer counseling on issues such as substance abuse.
"The institute's educational programs are driven by its research," Sonnenstuhl said. "The Cornell Workplace Study will help us develop programs that specifically address its findings."
Bacharach's work in New York City is not solely linked to the Smithers Institute. He's at work, as well, on increasing the ILR School's distance-learning mission and, with the dean's support, developing various programs, including a Master's of Professional Studies degree program, that would be based in the city.