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"Free" Labor: An Introduction

May 26, 2015 Whitney Benns

This post is the first in a four-part series. On the morning of February 20, 2015, a large number of inmates at Willacy County Correctional Center, a state prison facility at the southern end of Texas, went on strike. Inmate workers refused to go to work at their assigned jobs in protest over the facility’s […]

Uber's Take-Rate Structure and Employee Status

May 23, 2015 Benjamin Sachs

According to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Uber has increased it’s “take-rate” in select markets. Since April, in San Francisco and San Diego, Uber has been taking a 30% commission on rides offered by new UberX drivers. The previous take-rate was between 20% and 25% in these markets. The increased rate is itself of […]

House Subcommittee Examines Reforms to Federal Employees’ Compensation Act

May 20, 2015 Emily Cusick

Today, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), held a hearing entitled, “Reforming the Workers’ Compensation Program for Federal Employees.” The press release about the Hearing states: Enacted in 1916, the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) provides workers’ compensation benefits to federal employees who […]

Can the NLRB Order Bad Faith Bargainers To Pay A Union’s Negotiating Costs?

May 20, 2015 Scott Hochberg

The NLRB’s power to remedy violations of §8 of the NLRA is usually quite limited: it can issue cease and desist letters, order the parties to bargain in good faith, and require reinstatement and backpay for individual employees (along with several less common remedies). The Board’s authority derives from §10 of the NLRA, which the […]

Uber and Lyft: Customer Reviews and the Right-to-Control

May 20, 2015 Benjamin Sachs

Yesterday, I moderated an ABA “webinar” on Uber, Lyft and the sharing economy with three great panelists: Shannon Liss-Riordan, Richard Reibstein, and Evan Spelfogel. One of the most productive exchanges came during the discussion of how to determine whether Uber and Lyft (and similar “sharing economy” or “gig economy” firms) have sufficient control over the work carried out by their drivers to […]

Gig News — May 19, 2015

May 19, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This post is part of an ongoing series on labor and the gig economy. The Wall Street Journal published contrasting opinions on whether the gig economy is good for workers. Rachel Botsman, who teaches a class on the collaborative economy at Oxford University, argues that the gig economy is “enabling individuals to take entrepreneurial risks […]

Guest Post: Pension Protection in the Illinois Supreme Court

May 15, 2015 David Skeel

David Skeel is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court released its much anticipated ruling in the challenge to the 2013 Illinois pension reforms referenced in my previous post. (In re Pension Reform Litigation, 2015 IL 118585 (Ill S. Ct., May 8, 2015)). As expected, the court struck down […]

Guest Post: Should Municipal Bankruptcy be Allowed in Illinois?

May 5, 2015 David Skeel

David Skeel is a visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. In her characteristically thoughtful post, Professor Michelle Wilde Anderson points out that Illinois cities might not alter their pensions (or might not alter them much) even if Illinois enacted legislation authorizing its cities to file for municipal bankruptcy. I think Professor Anderson is completely right […]

Gig News – May 4th

May 4, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This post is part of an ongoing series on labor and the gig economy. The Recorder profiled Shannon Liss-Riordan, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the Uber and Lyft California worker classification suits previously covered by OnLabor and described in detail by Bloomberg BNA. The profile describes Liss-Riordan’s background and motivations, and provides background on […]

Guest Post: Will Governor Rauner's New Bankruptcy Proposal Break Chicago's Pension Obligations?

May 1, 2015 Michelle Wilde Anderson

Michelle Wilde Anderson is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has decided that allowing his state’s municipalities to declare bankruptcy is an important arrow in his quiver to break “the corrupt bargain that is crushing taxpayers”—namely union influence and membership rates in Illinois. Chicago, which he says “is in deep, deep […]

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OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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