The White House announced that President Biden has reprised his nomination of Jessica Looman, a former labor lawyer and union official, to serve as the top official at the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division.  Biden initially nominated Looman after Senate Republicans rejected his initial pick in July.  Yet Senate Republicans proved undeterred, blocking Looman’s nomination earlier this month as well.  Since Looman currently serves as WHD’s principal deputy administrator, she will continue to lead the agency — which is tasked with enforcing the FLSA and other key federal employment statutes — while she awaits Senate confirmation.

In an article published yesterday the New York Times explores the escalating movement to organize the video game industry.  The industry is expanding rapidly.  It employs hundreds of thousands of people and generates more revenue than “music, U.S. book publishing, and North American sports combined.”  But it has long been plagued by swirling allegations of exploitative conditions, sexual discrimination, and workplace harassment.  In recent years such conditions have driven developers to seek union protections.  This year alone, for instance, employees have organized at several Activision Blizzard and Microsoft studios, and the NYT reports that organizing activities are unfolding at dozens of other locations.

In local news, Harvard Law School has launched the Center for Labor and a Just Economy, a research and policy center aiming to reimagine federal labor law so as to empower working people and construct a more equitable political economy.  CLJE’s directors believe new policy ideas are urgently necessary to take advantage of this moment, in which the pandemic has unleashed a wave of labor unrest.  “We are looking to develop — in collaboration with folks from across the labor movement, academia, worker advocacy — new strategies for empowering workers so that the economy and our democracy will be more fair,” executive director Sharon Block explained.  “The mission of the center is to reimagine American labor laws to enable working people to rebuild the economy and politics in a more equitable fashion,” echoed faculty codirector Benjamin Sachs.