Some of the hottest questions in labor policy over the past few years have been: how big is the “gig economy” or the “fissured workplace” or the “on-demand sector”? The Bureau of Labor Statistics gave its surprising answer to this question last week: smaller... More »
“[S]peech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection.” Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 452 (2011) (citation omitted). Nearly every brief filed in Janus v. AFSCME advocating for t... More »
In September, we worried that the Trump Administration was using Epic Systems (aka Murphy Oil) to lay the groundwork for curtailing protection of concerted activity outside the union organizing and collective bargaining context. To our relief, Epic Systems do... More »
Peter Robb, the NLRB General Counsel appointed by President Trump, has a change agenda for the agency. He recently took two actions that have garnered a great deal of attention among Board watchers. His announcements regarding a significant reorganization of... More »
Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board vacated its December decision in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors. (Ben and Sharon had called for this action in OnLabor last week here and here.) The Board’s unusual action follows a finding by the Board’s Inspec... More »
To start, I completely agree with everything Ben wrote about the need for the NLRB to withdraw the Hy-Brand decision because of Member Bill Emanuel’s improper participation in the decisionmaking process. My only departure is that I don’t think Ben’s call for ... More »
By Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs In September, we shared our plan to hold a symposium at Harvard Law on the question of whether it is time to end labor preemption. The symposium brought together leading labor law scholars and practitioners to wrestle with t... More »
In recent years, the end of a National Labor Relations Board member’s term occasioned an odd death watch for controversial precedent. Last week, Board Chair Phil Miscimarra finished his term with a flurry of big decisions, including five cases that overturned... More »
We clearly are in a different moment in the country now in how we respond to sexual harassment in the workplace. It is yet to be seen whether this moment will lead to something bigger and longer lasting. But one thing seems certain in the wake of this new mom... More »
In his hearing before the House Education and Workforce Committee last week, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta issued an ominous warning to worker centers across the country. When asked by Rep. Francis Rooney (R. Fla.) whether the Department of Labor would begin reg... More »
The Ninth Circuit issued a decision this week on whether the City of Los Angeles can include in its contracts with companies doing business at LAX a requirement that they enter into labor peace agreements or whether such a contract clause is preempted by the N... More »
In addition to many POTUS tweets, the controversy over NFL players’ national anthem protest has also generated a number of interesting labor law questions, about which Ben has written. A new issue arose, however, in a curious exchange in the Bloomberg Daily L... More »