Benjamin Sachs is the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School and a leading expert in the field of labor law and labor relations. He is also faculty director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy. Professor Sachs teaches courses in labor law, employment law, and law and social change, and his writing focuses on union organizing and unions in American politics. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 2008, Professor Sachs was the Joseph Goldstein Fellow at Yale Law School. From 2002-2006, he served as Assistant General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Washington, D.C. Professor Sachs graduated from Yale Law School in 1998, and served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. His writing has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the New York Times and elsewhere. Professor Sachs received the Yale Law School teaching award in 2007 and in 2013 received the Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence at Harvard Law School. He can be reached at [email protected].
Quite an interesting decision from NLRB Administrative Law Judge Paul Bogas last week. The case, Alma Products, involves the discipline of an employee for wearing a T-Shirt that said “slave” and depicted a ball and chain. The t-shirt also displayed the employee’s time clock number. The evidence was clear that the T-shirts had been printed as part of an earlier bargaining fight and were intended to criticize wages and working conditions at the company. Although the employer’s position before the ALJ was that the shirts were racially offensive, and a threat to the company’s ability to attract customers, the employer’s own representatives testified that they understood the shirt to be a “general wage and conditions protest.”
The ALJ, correctly in my view, found that wearing the shirt was protected activity here and thus that the discipline was an unfair labor practice. Equally important, though, the ALJ concludes that – in another context – the wearing of such a shirt could be unprotected. In particular, if there is evidence of racial animus, or if the word “slave” is “used in direct reference to an African-American employee and in a way demeaning to that employee” then the employer would be free to prohibit the shirt or discipline its wearer. A balanced, context sensitive, decision.
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May 30
Trump's tariffs temporarily reinstated after brief nationwide injunction; Louisiana Bill targets payroll deduction of union dues; Colorado Supreme Court to consider a self-defense exception to at-will employment
May 29
AFGE argues termination of collective bargaining agreement violates the union’s First Amendment rights; agricultural workers challenge card check laws; and the California Court of Appeal reaffirms San Francisco city workers’ right to strike.
May 28
A proposal to make the NLRB purely adjudicatory; a work stoppage among court-appointed lawyers in Massachusetts; portable benefits laws gain ground
May 27
a judge extends a pause on the Trump Administration’s mass-layoffs, the Fifth Circuit refuses to enforce an NLRB order, and the Texas Supreme court extends workplace discrimination suits to co-workers.
May 26
Federal court blocks mass firings at Department of Education; EPA deploys new AI tool; Chiquita fires thousands of workers.
May 25
United Airlines flight attendants reach tentative agreement; Whole Foods workers secure union certification; One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts $1.1 trillion