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].
I have a new essay in the Texas Law Review that aims to help explain how a legal regime like labor law can (if actually enforced) facilitate organizing and collective action. The essay – Law, Organizing, and Status Quo Vulnerability – draws on social movement theory that will be familiar to many readers, and it benefits from the work of OnLabor contributors Kate Andrias, Cindy Estlund, and Brishen Rogers. With the caveat that the essay’s suggestions for particular reforms may not be, um, practically relevant in the current political context, the piece is available here and the abstract is below:
In an era of deep economic and political inequality, academics and policymakers are paying renewed attention to the decline of unions and asking how the labor movement might be revived. For legal scholars, the question is how law can facilitate unionization among workers who desire it. This essay aims to expand our understanding of how labor law enables union organizing, and, by doing so, to provide insight into both labor law reform and the relationship between law and organizing more broadly. Drawing on social movement theory, the essay shows how law can facilitate organizing by rendering the status quo vulnerable to challenge. In the labor law context, this means that law works to enable unionization by demonstrating to workers that management – and the non-union system of workplace relations it supports – is susceptible to challenge and change. The essay interprets a range of labor law rights and remedies through the lens of this theory. Having done so, the essay then suggests a set of reforms for those interested in combatting inequality through unionization. It also suggests that law’s ability to demonstrate status quo vulnerability may explain the relationship between law and social movements across contexts.
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November 21
The “Big Three” record labels make a deal with an AI music streaming startup; 30 stores join the now week-old Starbucks Workers United strike; and the Mine Safety and Health Administration draws scrutiny over a recent worker death.
November 20
Law professors file brief in Slaughter; New York appeals court hears arguments about blog post firing; Senate committee delays consideration of NLRB nominee.
November 19
A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to cancel the collective bargaining rights of workers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media; Representative Jared Golden secures 218 signatures for a bill that would repeal a Trump administration executive order stripping federal workers of their collective bargaining rights; and Dallas residents sue the City of Dallas in hopes of declaring hundreds of ordinances that ban bias against LGBTQ+ individuals void.
November 18
A federal judge pressed DOJ lawyers to define “illegal” DEI programs; Peco Foods prevails in ERISA challenge over 401(k) forfeitures; D.C. court restores collective bargaining rights for Voice of America workers; Rep. Jared Golden secures House vote on restoring federal workers' union rights.
November 17
Justices receive petition to resolve FLSA circuit split, vaccine religious discrimination plaintiffs lose ground, and NJ sues Amazon over misclassification.
November 16
Boeing workers in St. Louis end a 102-day strike, unionized Starbucks baristas launch a new strike, and Illinois seeks to expand protections for immigrant workers