Sharon and I have a piece up at WaPo today making the case that California should follow AB5 with a new law that gives gig workers the right to form unions and collectively bargain with their employers. More »
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, g... More »
Héctor Figueroa died last week at the tragically young age of 57. I had the good fortune to work with Héctor for the past seventeen years, and to watch him grow into a truly inspiring leader. For the past seven years Héctor was President of SEIU Local 32BJ, ... More »
This week, Senator Kamala Harris and Representative Pramila Jayapal introduced the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights (HR 3760 and S 2112). The bill provides a number of important protections for domestic workers. The bill corrects several historical e... More »
The Trump NLRB has held that an employer may withdraw recognition from a union even if the union has the support of a majority of workers at the time of withdrawal. This decision is yet another reminder that the Trump appointees have repeatedly chosen to prot... More »
With gridlock in Congress the norm for the foreseeable future, the federal regulatory process has taken on greater importance as a policy tool. But relying on the regulatory process to advance progressive, pro-worker policy is problematic. The modern federal... More »
In her second post on the Uber/Lyft drivers’ association, Veena Dubal rightly celebrates the success of the recent Uber/Lyft work stoppages. The example of workers, who have no labor or employment law rights, engaging in the kind of collective action that she... More »
Last year, Ben and I flagged concerns about the breadcrumbs that the Supreme Court dropped in its opinion in Epic Systems v. Lewis on the path to narrowing the National Labor Relations Act’s protection for concerted activity. A recent filing by the Board’s Ge... More »
As OnLabor covered last week (here and here), the Department of Labor recently issued an “opinion letter” finding that the workers deriving income from an unnamed “virtual marketplace company” are independent contractors and not employees covered by the Fair L... More »
One of the most widely observed weaknesses in federal labor law is the absence of effective remedies. Scholars have been writing about this problem for decades, and a Human Rights Watch report issued in 2000 described a “culture of near-impunity” resulting fr... More »
The House Education and Labor Committee recently revealed that the Trump appointees on the NLRB are hiring a private contractor to help review the public comments submitted in response to their proposed joint employer rule. NLRB Chairman John Ring told the Me... More »
When Donald Trump was elected, one of the top priorities for the Chamber of Commerce at the NLRB was to overturn the Specialty Healthcare decision that clarified the test for determining when a union’s proposed bargaining unit must include an additional group ... More »