Adi Kamdar is a student at Harvard Law School.
Why don’t all jobs matter? The provocative question is posed by Paul Krugman in today’s New York Times. Krugman questions why so much focus is on mining and manufacturing jobs, when the service sector—a much bigger slice of the economy—is dwindling. He points to several possible reasons, though complicates them all: the importance of mining jobs to local economies, the “political footballs” they have become, and the fact that miners and manufacturers tend to be white and male. Krugman ultimately concludes that saving jobs that are being lost may not be the smartest tack; instead, we should be investing in reeducation and guaranteeing benefits like health care.
Dylan Matthews of Vox summarizes a number of ideas—inspired largely by Europe—for how to save unions. First, unions could be organized on the sector level instead of on the company level, so all workers in a particular industry are affected. With less cross-company labor competition, the argument goes, businesses will be less union-averse. But how do you avoid the “free rider” problem, where, as in France, nearly every worker is covered by a collective bargaining agreement but fewer than 10% of workers are actually in unions? Some countries, like Denmark and Finland, have systems where unions run unemployment insurance, increasing the contact between the labor organizations and possible members. As Professor Sachs notes in the piece, however, such a change might be very tough during the Trump years.
Fast Company Co.Design covers a recent report by the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business on migrant workers. The report highlights how many of these workers end up paying to work: agents and recruiters require trumped-up fees and many workers end up dishing out extra for airline tickets and other documents. As the piece notes, “When you finally get to work, you might already owe a year’s worth of wages.”
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September 15
Unemployment claims rise; a federal court hands victory to government employees union; and employers fire workers over social media posts.
September 14
Workers at Boeing reject the company’s third contract proposal; NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cohen plans to sue New York over the state’s trigger bill; Air Canada flight attendants reject a tentative contract.
September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.
September 9
Ninth Circuit revives Trader Joe’s lawsuit against employee union; new bill aims to make striking workers eligible for benefits; university lecturer who praised Hitler gets another chance at First Amendment claims.