CELSI researcher Patrik Gažo took part in the prestigious ILERA global conference held at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell University on May 9–10, 2025.

Hosted in a historic Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, this conference of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) focused on global perspectives on “Labor and the Transition to Electric Vehicles.”

The event was organized by a team of renowned scholars and book editors: Ian Greer, Art Wheaton, and Harry Katz (Cornell-ILR), Mathieu Dupuis (Université Laval), and Anja Kirsch (Free University Berlin).

Scholars presented research covering the world’s three main automobile manufacturing regions - East Asia, North America, and Europe - as well as key production and resource extraction sites, such as Brazil, South Africa, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chile.

In Session 1, titled "Bargaining over the Transition," Patrik Gažo represented CELSI alongside Martin Krzywdzinski (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) and Katarzyna Rakowska.

Their presentation, co-authored with Monika Martišková, Tibor Meszmann, and Stefan Guga, focused on how automotive suppliers and trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and South-Eastern Europe (SEE) are preparing for the shift to electromobility.

“The conference offered a unique opportunity to hear from American trade unionists and to share experiences with automotive industry researchers from around the world,” said Patrik Gažo after the event, which he found to be highly stimulating.