
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].
Republican Senator Josh Hawley has circulated a document titled “A Pro-Worker Framework for the 119th Congress.” The document, available on Punchbowl News, lays out a set of proposals for labor law reform. The proposals, couched in broad terms and not in legislative language, include: requiring employers to post notices of NLRA rights and to affirmatively notify new employees of their NLRA rights; implementing safety and health reforms particularly for warehouse workers (presumably in line with the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, which Hawley supported in the last Congress); banning captive audience meetings “while protecting free speech rights of business owners”; holding NLRB elections within 20 days (of a petition presumably, though this isn’t specified); requiring that initial contract bargaining begin within 10 days of a successful union election and requiring that unions and employers “execute their agreements within months, not years”; and enhanced remedies with a private right of action in certain cases.
It is unclear whether there is more detail available about Hawley’s ideas (Punchbowl has only the one-page document) and, without more detail, it’s hard to offer anything like a complete assessment of the framework. This document, moreover, is far from a bill and it remains to be seen how much traction Hawley’s proposals will get, including from the incoming Trump Administration. And, even if all were enacted, this slate of reforms would fall far short of what’s required to fix U.S. labor law. But these are proposals for significant changes that may scramble the politics of labor law reform. That too remains to be seen.
Daily News & Commentary
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May 13
In today’s News and Commentary, Trump appeals a court-ordered pause on mass layoffs, the Tenth Circuit sidesteps a ruling on the Board’s remedial powers, and an industry group targets Biden-era NLRB decisions. The Trump administration is asking the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to pause a temporary order blocking the administration from continuing […]
May 12
NJ Transit engineers threaten strike; a court halts Trump's firings; and the pope voices support for workers.
May 9
Philadelphia City Council unanimously passes the POWER Act; thousands of federal worker layoffs at the Department of Interior expected; the University of Oregon student workers union reach a tentative agreement, ending 10-day strike
May 8
Court upholds DOL farmworker protections; Fifth Circuit rejects Amazon appeal; NJTransit navigates negotiations and potential strike.
May 7
U.S. Department of Labor announces termination of mental health and child care benefits for its employees; SEIU pursues challenge of NLRB's 2020 joint employer rule in the D.C. Circuit; Columbia University lays off 180 researchers
May 6
HHS canceled a scheduled bargaining session with the FDA's largest workers union; members of 1199SEIU voted out longtime union president George Gresham in rare leadership upset.