Faculty Co-Director, Labor and Worklife Program Professor, Economics, Harvard University
Richard B. Freeman holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University. He is currently serving as Faculty co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School, and is Co-Director of the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities.
Faculty Co-Director, Labor and Worklife Program Professor, Harvard Law School
Benjamin Sachs is the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School and a leading expert in the field of labor law and labor relations. Professor Sachs teaches courses in labor law, employment law, and law and social change, and his writing focuses on union organizing and unions in American politics.
Executive Director, Labor and Worklife Program Professor of Practice, Harvard Law School Former Executive Director, Labor and Worklife Program 2017-2021
Sharon Block is a Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Piror to returning to Harvard, she served as the Acting Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in President Joe Biden’s White House.
From 2017 to 2021, Block led the Labor and Worklife Program. During this time, she launched the Clean Slate for Worker Power project, which is a comprehensive policy initiative focused on fundamental redesign of labor law with the aspiration to enable all working people to create the collective economic and political power necessary to build an equitable economy and politics.... Read more about Sharon Block
As if society’s constant scrutiny over women’s bodies was not enough, now a new Twitter ad for a health and wellness app wants to stereotype how older women look. The promotional ad was advocating a daily walking challenge for women across 45 to 65 age groups when they went a little overboard with their graphics. The ad displayed a woman in the age group of 45-50 carrying a cane stick, with white hair and a wrinkled face.
The regressive poster was first noted by lawyer Terri Gerstein, who called out the advertisement on Twitter by writing, “Is this what they think women over 45 look like?” Gerstein further added that she appreciates and sends her love to women with any health and disability issues, “My reason for sharing the post was because of my shock at the bizarre & offensive graphics! I realise the exercise routines described might be good for many people but depending on their own situation & people of all ages should feel great about starting to exercise at whatever level.”... Read more about Do Men Really Age Better, Or Do We Tend To Dismiss Older Women As Irrelevant?
The fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda could soon rest with the administrator of a tiny office deep within the White House.
“OIRA is always at the center of administrative activity — the joke is it’s the most powerful agency nobody’s ever heard of,” said Sharon Block, who served as its acting chief through Biden’s first year. “Now, it becomes even more important.”
“Seven months ago if you asked me about a union I would’ve said, ‘I don’t know, cops have them?’” says Sarah Pappin, a shift supervisor at a Seattle Starbucks. But on June 6, she and her co-workers voted unanimously to join Starbucks Workers United, part of an upsurge of organizing by younger workers with little union experience that is breathing new life into the labor movement.
With the midterm elections coming, Democrats are trying to push through key legislative priorities — including renewing the child tax credit (CTC), which gives working parents a credit for each child and will expire in December 2025. No one doubts that it will be renewed; the credit has broad bipartisan public support.
Our study shows that over 1.5 million parents — 80 percent of whom are women — may be excluded from the full child tax credit despite working. At the current federal minimum wage, we estimate that a...
Though a win would have inevitably injected more momentum into the current labor organizing push, today’s loss still has the potential, according to labor experts, to further mobilize workers by laying bare the lengths to which corporations will go to defeat unionization drives.
Regardless of today’s loss, the unprecedented nature of the first victory will likely keep the movement energized. “[Workers] were told that Amazon was too big, that the...
The recent deluge of union elections at Starbucks Corp. stores is pushing the federal labor board to its limit, reflecting a broader influx in labor action as the pandemic winds down.
Flat funding and a restless labor force have created a near perfect storm for the National Labor Relations Board, charged with overseeing every private-sector union election. Election petitions have already swelled by 57% in the first half of the 2021 fiscal year as unfair labor practice charges rose by 14%. At the...
The Brockton-based company has paid large settlements in recent years in at least three lawsuits brought by workers who got hurt on the job and blamed JDC and other contractors.
Mark Erlich, a fellow at Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program and a retired officer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, said big job sites like these are supposed to have many checks on safety protocols. But things don't always go right.
BY JOSEFA VELASQUEZ ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CLAUDIA IRIZARRY APONTE The City, NYC
The retail giant is challenging NLRB certification, and a second vote at a nearby warehouse looms ahead. That’s all before anyone sits down at the bargaining table to discuss a contract.
Aside from Amazon’s objections to the vote, it could be a long road to getting the company and the ALU to agree on a contract. While the NLRB requires employers to bargain in good faith once the...
In the coming days, the Amazon Labor Union may face a challenge from Amazon over the legitimacy of the election results that, if successful, could overturn the outcome. If the union survives that potential challenge, it will enter negotiations with the company over the contours of a union contract at the facility that will likely stretch on for months.
If Amazon foregoes a challenge of the results or the...
Victor is a Visiting Fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Victor is also a PhD Candidate in Labor Law at the Autonomous University... Read more about Víctor Sánchez del Olmo
Amazon workers have voted to unionize for the first time in the company's history in the United States, securing a sweeping and unexpected victory in a National Labor Relations Board election for a group of around 8,000 workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York.
"Amazon is a corporation with massive essentially unlimited resources which it has deployed to stop workers from exercising their right to organize, and that nonetheless the workers have been able to...
Overall U.S. unionization declined last year, despite 2021’s wave of prominent strike authorizations, mass resignations, and other organizing efforts. But Smalls’s win signals that there’s an opening for workers, one that many others are now more likely to explore. “The psychological and symbolic importance of a win can’t be overstated,” says Sharon Block, a former Obama Labor Department policy chief who now directs Harvard Law School...
