Lolita De Palma is a student at Harvard Law School.
California has experienced significant union growth—139,000 workers were unionized in the past year. 16.5% of California’s workforce is now unionized. Steve Smith, spokesman for the California Labor Federation, said, “We’re seeing a reinvigoration in organizing across California, including in healthcare, online media, technology, and entertainment.”
As Annie reported yesterday, Clean Slate for Worker Power, an initiative of Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program, released its final report on Thursday. The initiative brought together a diverse group of activists and scholars to recommend policies to empower working people. The report advocates for an entirely new system of labor law that will enable working people to build collective organizations to increase their bargaining power with employers. The Harvard Gazette interviewed Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs, the authors of the report, who explained that a “clean slate” is necessary for labor law because “the system we have is so fundamentally broken that tweaking it or amending it is no longer a sufficient response.”
Today, unions in France made a final push to oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s sweeping pension plan. Thousands took to the streets, disrupting traffic and forcing schools to shut down. Now that the health minister has officially presented the bill to President Macron and his cabinet, Parliament can begin to debate the proposals next month.
Presidential hopefuls have been looking to unions for endorsements in the upcoming Democratic primaries. While Senator Bernie Sanders has been receiving significant union support, Pete Buttigieg has not been endorsed by a single union.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
September 16
In today’s news and commentary, the NLRB sues New York, a flight attendant sues United, and the Third Circuit considers the employment status of Uber drivers The NLRB sued New York to block a new law that would grant the state authority over private-sector labor disputes. As reported on recently by Finlay, the law, which […]
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.