By Lisa Baertlein and Doyinsola Oladipo
NASDAQ

Union railworkers in the United States scored a potential key victory in their fight for improved pay and working conditions on Thursday in what could be a model for other unions.

"The pandemic gave workers a different view on what they should have to put up with at work. It's just not OK to go back to the way things were," Harvard Law School Professor Sharon Block said.

Indeed, railworkers received support from several industry groups representing hundreds of customers, who in letters to lawmakers complained rail service suffered from layoffs and other cutbacks while prices increased. Railroads inflamed that ire by cutting rail services before this week's deadline for a deal, worsening train delays and cargo backups.... Read more about U.S. railroad worker fight for pay, benefits could be model for other deals

Adrian Ma
NPR Interview

Historically, building a union in the United States has been a grassroots process. For example, while workers at one Chipotle may succeed in bargaining for better wages, that doesn't guarantee the same success for the Chipotle across town or the Qdoba down the street.

But California's FAST Recovery Act (Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act) may flip America's labor dynamic on its head. Instead of a bottom-up approach, why not a top-down approach where industry representatives decide on working standards for all? There's even a phase for this: Sectoral bargaining.... Read more about A super-sized labor experiment

By Emily Stewart 
Vox

Many American workers have very little control over their schedules. For some, that translates to too few hours, or a complete lack of control of when they’re expected to work week to week. For others, it means too many hours they can’t say no to. Often (but not always), mandatory overtime comes with a carrot of being paid time and a half for their labor. Sometimes, the carrot isn’t worth it, but workers have no choice. Their employer also has the stick and can fire them for refusing.

“There’s essentially no scheduling protection for workers in this country, and we have a problem on both ends of the spectrum,” said Sharon Block, a law professor at Harvard and former Biden administration official. “You don’t even have protections when you complain about it unless you do it collectively. But if you, just as an individual, go to your boss and say, ‘I’m just really tired of working all this overtime, do you think you could not schedule me for overtime this week?’ An employer can fire you for that.”

By Brett Milano
Harvard Law Today

“The real world is exciting and fun in a way, which for labor lawyers hasn’t always been true,” she said in a conversation with Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry Benjamin I. Sachs. Block recently returned to Harvard as executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School after a career that included key positions in both the Obama and Biden administrations — serving on the former’s National Labor Relations Board, and as acting administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Biden.

We’re seeing organization in workplaces that were previously thought to be un-organizable. These workers are getting over that hurdle, so is that going to inspire more organizing?

The path to change, she said, may instead be political. “Not to abandon organizing but having more people in Congress who will vote for labor law reform. You mobilize people around the big issues, not by nibbling around the edges.”

Jennifer Li
CNBC

If you’ve talked to anyone about work in the last month, you’ve probably discussed quiet quitting (or setting boundaries), the not-so-quiet backlash from bosses, and even warnings of quiet firing (or managing out).

Railroad workers prepared to go on strike. Starbucks workers are unionizing. Teachers and nurses, burned out beyond belief in year three of the pandemic, say they’re reaching a breaking point.

All the while, the Great Resignation has become less of an anomaly as sky-high turnover every month has become the new norm. Even worries of a looming recession and mounting layoffs haven’t shaken workers’ confidence.

The power struggles between workers and bosses may have buzzy catchphrases now, but they’re really nothing new, says Sharon Block, professor and executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.... Read more about Why does work feel so dysfunctional right now? A psychologist, labor expert and CEO weigh in

 Benjamin Sachs
OnLabor Blog

As part of our Labor Day coverage, I’m posting my take on the Supreme Court’s decision in Cedar Point Nursery. OnLabor readers can access the full article on The Supreme Court Review’s website (for thirty days) and the article’s Introduction is posted below. The bottom line? Only by ignoring what the United Farm Workers actually did in the 1960s and 70s, and only by ignoring what labor law actually does, can the Supreme Court conclude that the union access rights at issue in the case were an unconstitutional taking of property. Had the Court acknowledged the contributions to public safety and pesticide health facilitated by California’s agricultural labor relations act, the Court’s own reasoning would have required the opposite holding.

by Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs 
OnLabor Blog

For those of us who support unions, we have an unfamiliar feeling this Labor Day. It’s a feeling of hope and celebration. This is unfamiliar territory because union organizing has been in a free fall for decades now. But we can smile this Labor Day because American workers have delivered a lot to celebrate and, even more importantly, a lot to be inspired by. Workers this year have accomplished what just a few years ago seemed impossible — they have created positive momentum for a labor movement that many left for dead. Baristas at Starbucks, warehouse workers at Amazon, geniuses at Apple, crew members at Trader Joe’s, and salespeople at REI all now share an unexpected common title — union member. And we can see in the results of Gallup’s latest poll that this momentum is contagious: support for unions among the public — 71 percent — is at the highest level since 1965.

But we find our celebratory mood tempered somewhat by a recognition of two things: first, the enormous effort it took for workers to achieve these victories, and, second, how much difficult work remains ahead. Put simply, it just shouldn’t be this hard, this heroic, this extraordinary, to organize a union and bargain a contract.... Read more about This Labor Day We’re Inspired, but It Shouldn’t Be This Difficult

ByJosh Eidelson and Augusta Saraiva
Bloomberg

Tens of thousands of US railroad workers could be on strike by the end of this week, a potential new shock to supply chains that would pose a pre-midterm political quandary for President Joe Biden and the Democrats.

“In this moment where there’s so much public concern about supply chain and inflation, I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Congress to step in,” said Sharon Block, who worked in the Obama and Biden administrations and is now executive director of Harvard Law School’s Labor and...

BY CLAUDIA IRIZARRY APONTE 
The City, NYC

In a step toward affirming the groundbreaking vote on Staten Island that created the nation’s first union of Amazon warehouse workers, a National Labor Relations Board official recommended rejecting the e-commerce giant’s claims that the vote was invalid.

While the NLRB’s decision on Thursday was a welcome win for the workers, their battle is far from over – and a first contract is still out of reach.

“The company and the union must bargain in good faith…. That means that they must agree to meet at a reasonable time in private and try to reach an agreement,” the workforce staffing manager, identified as Eric, said. “The law does not say that they have to reach an agreement. They just have to try to.”

That’s one reason why it takes an average of 465 days for workers to sign a first union contract, according to a recent Bloomberg Law analysis.

Sharon Block, a professor at Harvard Law School and executive director of the school’s Labor & Worklife Program, said the loophole amounts to a “huge flaw” in federal labor law that erodes worker morale.

“From an employer’s perspective who doesn’t want to bargain, you just pay some lawyers a little bit of money, and you can forestall bargaining,” she said. “Meanwhile, the union has to expend resources, almost continually organizing because you have a bargaining unit that’s saying, ‘Well, what did we do this for?’ And it’s not the union’s fault – It’s just this weakness in the law.”

“It just shouldn’t be this hard,” Block added.... Read more about Federal Official Recommends Rejecting Amazon’s Bid to Overturn Staten Island Union Election Results

View Interview with Sharon Block

Across the country, labor unions have celebrated recent victories at companies like Starbucks and John Deere. However, union membership rates have dropped to a historic low. What is the reason? 

By Max Zahn
ABC News 

If signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the law would allow hundreds of thousands of fast food workers to bargain collectively over the terms of their work at large companies across the sector, rather than be forced to form a union at a single workplace and negotiate with one employer at a time. Using a newly created state-level council, California could raise pay and improve working conditions for the industry.

"It's really significant because it's giving fast food workers a seat at the table on a sector-wide basis," Sharon Block, the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard University Law School, told ABC News.

"Once this is up and running, fast food companies can't compete against each other based on who can drive down labor costs as much as possible to make themselves more profitable," she added.... Read more about California legislature passes bill that could transform worker bargaining. Here’s how.

Prospecft Staff

How can organizations of poor and working people build countervailing power against large institutions? One strategy is to devise laws that create opportunities for organizing and political leverage to change the distribution of power and alter substantive outcomes. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is one such law. The NLRA invited and defended union organizing. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is another such law. It created an affirmative obligation on the part of banks to serve communities, which in turn provided an organizing target. What laws...

Meghan McCarty Carino
Marketplace

More than 200 Starbucks have now unionized across the country as well as two Trader Joe’s and an Apple store. The shop-by-shop approach creates a constant drumbeat of union activity, though each of these drives involves a relatively small number of workers.

“It’s simply easier to do,” he said, involving far fewer logistical challenges. Workers can even undertake organizing small workplaces on their own, without the resources of a powerful union. It’s...

BY ISABELLE GIUS
The American Prospect

Our current model of collective bargaining leaves millions of workers out in the cold. Sectoral bargaining could change all that—and, just maybe, rebuild our shrunken middle class.

Sectoral bargaining also has the potential to disincentivize employer opposition to unionization. Under our current bargaining system, companies compete with each other over wages, and most managers thus believe that unionization will put them at a competitive disadvantage. Sectoral bargaining takes wages out of competition, requiring all companies in a sector to follow the same rules and adhere to the same standards, thus preventing a race to the bottom that pits workers against one another and drives down wages and living standards.

Employers then have to compete based on other factors, such as greater productivity or the quality of their product. With sectoral bargaining, as Sharon Block, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, explained: “You don’t have workers bearing the full burden of the competitiveness that is inherent in capitalism.”... Read more about Thinking Sectorally

Sharon Block
OnLabor Blog

The states with the lowest union density generally have the lowest possible minimum wage, no state-mandated paid sick or family leave and have poverty rates above the national average. Conversely, states with the highest union density generally have among the highest minimum wage levels in the country, ensure access to paid sick or family leave and have lower-than-average poverty rates. 

Put simply, the presence of unions in a state correlates with low-wage workers being economically better able to care for themselves and their...