Editorials

Knox Update: California Moves to Intervene in Friedrichs

Benjamin Sachs

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].

We’re following post-Knox litigation challenging the constitutionality of agency shop agreements in the public sector.  In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, plaintiffs are seeking to enjoin enforcement of the provision of the California Educational Employment Relations Act that authorizes agency shops.  The state of California has now moved to intervene for the purpose of defending the constitutionality of the statute.  A hearing on the motion has been set for November 8th, before Judge Josephine Staton Tucker.

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