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Worker Misclassification in Washington State Leads to Millions in Revenue Losses, New Harvard Report Details

December 16, 2019

Widespread misclassification of workers could mean millions of dollars uncollected and thousands of workers underpaid and without benefits

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON — The number of employers engaging in worker misclassification in Washington state has risen substantially over the last 10 years. Misclassification has resulted in the denial of pay and benefits for tens of thousands of workers as well as millions of dollars in lost revenue, according to a new study from researchers with Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program.... Read more about Worker Misclassification in Washington State Leads to Millions in Revenue Losses, New Harvard Report Details

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“Confronting Misclassification and Payroll Fraud”

June 25, 2019

Report details increasing role of state agencies in enforcing misclassification laws and providing worker protections, crucial in era of lax federal enforcement

by Mark Erlich and Terri Gerstein 

BOSTON, MA – Researchers from the Harvard Labor & Worklife Program, a program of Harvard Law School, released on Wednesday a report detailing the expanding and increasingly inventive role of state-level agencies regarding enforcement of worker misclassification laws and upholding workers protections. The report, “Confronting Misclassification and Payroll Fraud: A Survey of State Labor Standards Enforcement Agencies” is published in the midst of a decades-long trend of employers increasingly misclassifying workers as independent contractors. More urgently, within the past two years, the federal government, through the United States Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board, has been increasingly rolling back worker protections and enforcement.

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2018 Apr 13

The Value of an Overseas Research Trip

12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Baker 103, Bloomberg Center, Harvard Business School
SPEAKER: Gokhan Aykac (RA, Gazi University Dept of Economics, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School) 
TITLE: "The Value of an Overseas Research Trip"
2017 Sep 15

Innovation in the Cell Phone Markets of US and China

12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Baker L​i​brary , Harvard Business School

Economics of Science and Engineering Workshop
Given by: Richard Freeman (Harvard University and NBER), Jorn Boenke (Labor & Worklife Program, Harvard Law School), and Magjie Cheng (Stanford University) 

Cell phones are a product with continual innovation that have impacted lives around the world.  American adults spend 2 hours 51 minutes on their smartphone every day.  This paper analyzes the changing attributes of cell Phones in the two largest economies in the world, USA and China.  It uses hedonic price regressions to assess the speed of innovative change from data on prices matched with the attributes of new and older models.  It assesses the impact of innovations on cell phones on consumer well-being and assesses the seeming inconsistency between micro data on products with improved technological features and macro data that show sluggish growth of GDP per capita in the US.

Mark Erlich

Mark Erlich

Wertheim Fellow
Research on Misclassification and Underground Economy

Mark Erlich retired as Executive Secretary-Treasurer (EST) of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, a 19,000 member organization in March 2017.  A member of Carpenters Local 40 since 1975, he worked at his craft as an apprentice, journeyman, foreman, and superintendent. While EST, Erlich chaired the New England Carpenters Benefits Funds and the New England Carpenters Training Fund. He was a Vice-President of the Mass AFL-CIO and Mass Building Trades.  He continues to serve as a member on the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals, MassINC board, and the Federal Reserve Advisory Council.... Read more about Mark Erlich

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merlich@law.harvard.edu
Congratulations to Elaine Bernard for receiving the Sefton/Williams Award for Contributions to Labour Relations

Congratulations to Elaine Bernard for receiving the Sefton/Williams Award for Contributions to Labour Relations

March 30, 2017

The award, given by Woodsworth College and the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resource at the Univeristy of Toronto, honours individuals who have made a significant contribution to the field of labour relations and human rights. Both practitioners in labour relations as well as academics have received this award.

The award will be presented at the Sefton-Williams Memorial Lecture on March 30, 2017. This years speaker is Richard Yeselson, Labour Journalist, talking on "Trade Unions and Populist Politics: What The Trump Presidency Truly Means for Labour"

We are proud that our former Executive Director is this year's recipient.

[Info on Award]

Erling Barth

Erling Barth

Wertheim Fellow
Research on Labor Markets

Erling Barth is Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo and Professor II at the Department of Economics, University of Oslo, affiliated with ESOP. His PhD is from the Department of Economics at the University of Oslo. He is Wertheim Fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University, Research Economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) at Cambridge, MA, and Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labour, IZA, in Bonn.

His research interests include technological change and its effects on the labor market, the impact of labor market institutions, inequality and the wage structure, employment, the economics of the welfare state, gender wage differentials, immigration, ownership, labor mobility, and firms’ behavior.... Read more about Erling Barth

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Online CV
erling.barth@samfunnsforskning.no