OnLabor

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Author:Sharon Block

Sharon Block is a Professor of Practice and the Executive Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School.

The State of Labor in the State of the Union

Mar 3, 2022 Sharon Block

I think it is fair to say that based on President Biden’s first State of the Union (SOTU) address, the state of labor’s interests in the Biden Administration is strong. Even before President Biden entered the House Chamber Tuesday night, Biden sent a signal about how central the labor movement is to his presidency. Starting with […]

A Letter of Gratitude from Sharon Block

Jan 25, 2021 Sharon Block

Dear Friends: Almost four years ago, I came to the Labor and Worklife Program here at Harvard Law School, after eight years in the Obama-Biden Administration. Last week, I left LWP to join the Biden-Harris Administration. In 2017, I thought I knew something of the magnitude of the challenges that were facing American workers. I […]

Clean Slate and the Future of Labor Law Reform

Jan 19, 2021 Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs

One year ago, we released our Clean Slate for Worker Power report. The report opened by invoking the idea that concentrated economic and political power threatens the functioning of democracy. We recognized that this idea shaped the New Deal and led to the National Labor Relations Act’s historic protection for union organizing and collective bargaining. […]

Why Workers Need Voice on the Job Now More than Ever

Jul 13, 2020 Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred multiple crises in our country including a public health crisis and an economic one. The need to protect the health of Americans and the need to protect their livelihoods might seem to require disparate approaches. But, as unlikely as it may seem, we believe that rewriting the rules of how […]

A Safer, More Equitable Reopening

May 20, 2020 Sharon Block, Brishen Rogers and Benjamin Sachs

As the country moves toward “reopening,” we face a critical pair of questions. The first is how businesses can begin operating again while ensuring the safety of the millions of workers who will return to their jobs. It is clear that we cannot rely on the Trump administration to accomplish this crucial task – after […]

Sectoral Bargaining on the Ballot

Feb 19, 2020 Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs

During this Democratic primary season, there has been much focus on what divides the candidates – who is for Medicare for All and who is for Medicare for anyone who wants it, who is for a Green New Deal and who is for a carbon tax, who wants structural change and who wants incremental change. […]

Dissent in Exile: UPS, 369 NLRB No. 1 (December 23, 2019)

Jan 7, 2020 Sharon Block

In the new Board’s first decision of the post-McFerran era, United Parcel Service, Inc., 369 NLRB No. 1 (2019), the Board’s three Republican members overturn yet another Obama Board decision. This time, the Republican-only Board has taken on arbitral deferral standards, reversing the Board’s 2014 decision in Babcock & Wilcox Construction Co., 261 NLRB 1127, […]

Respecting the Right to Strike at Harvard

Dec 16, 2019 Sharon Block, Benjamin Sachs and Laura Weinrib

According to the Crimson, Harvard has circulated an email advising departments seeking to hire spring teaching fellows (and other student workers) to include certain language in job postings and offer letters. The Crimson reports that the email “recommends departments include a provision in postings and offer letters that conditions teaching fellow positions on whether candidates […]

How Labor Law Could Help – Not Hinder – Tackling Big Problems

Dec 6, 2019 Sharon Block

As the urgency of the climate crisis grows, the question of the role of labor in finding solutions also becomes more urgent. As OnLabor has tracked, significant parts of the labor movement have expressed support for the climate fight. Labor groups joined the Global Climate Strikes this fall. Numerous alliances between labor and environmentalists have […]

Will California Legislate Fairness for Gig Workers?

Sep 9, 2019 Benjamin Sachs and Sharon Block

The battle for the gig economy’s future is underway in California. The fight is over a proposed bill – AB5 – that would classify many gig workers, including Uber and Lyft drivers, as employees for purposes of California employment law. Should AB5 be enacted, gig workers would win important protections like minimum wage, overtime pay, […]

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OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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The State of Labor in the State of the Union

A Letter of Gratitude from Sharon Block

Clean Slate and the Future of Labor Law Reform

Why Workers Need Voice on the Job Now More than Ever

A Safer, More Equitable Reopening

Sectoral Bargaining on the Ballot

Dissent in Exile: UPS, 369 NLRB No. 1 (December 23, 2019)

Respecting the Right to Strike at Harvard

How Labor Law Could Help – Not Hinder – Tackling Big Problems

Will California Legislate Fairness for Gig Workers?