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].
Kate Andrias and I have a new law review article out today showing how legal systems can be designed to fuel political organizing by the poor and working class. The article, Constructing Countervailing Power: Law and Organizing in an Era of Political Inequality is available here. The abstract is below:
This Article proposes an innovative approach to remedying the crisis of political inequality: using law to facilitate organizing by the poor and working class, not only as workers, but also as tenants, debtors, welfare beneficiaries, and others. The piece draws on the social-movements literature, and the successes and failures of labor law, to show how law can supplement the deficient regimes of campaign finance and lobbying reform and enable lower-income groups to build organizations capable of countervailing the political power of the wealthy. As such, the Article offers a new direction forward for the public-law literature on political power and political inequality. It also offers critical lessons for government officials, organizers, and advocates seeking to respond to the inequalities made painfully evident by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Daily News & Commentary
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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.
May 5
Unemployment rates for Black women go up under Trump; NLRB argues Amazon lacks standing to challenge captive audience meeting rule; Teamsters use Wilcox's reinstatement orders to argue against injunction.
May 4
In today’s news and commentary, DOL pauses the 2024 gig worker rule, a coalition of unions, cities, and nonprofits sues to stop DOGE, and the Chicago Teachers Union reaches a remarkable deal. On May 1, the Department of Labor announced it would pause enforcement of the Biden Administration’s independent contractor classification rule. Under the January […]