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 Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance. He directs the National Bureau of Economic Research / Science Engineering Workforce Projects, 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.
Sharon Block was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor and Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Labor.
For twenty years, Block has held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Early in her career she worked as an attorney at the National Labor Relations Board, and returned to the NLRB in 2012 when she was appointed to serve as a member of the Board by President Obama. She was senior counsel to the Senate HELP committee under Senator Edward Kennedy, playing a central role in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act. She has held senior positions in the U.S. Department of Labor throughout her career. Recently, as head of the policy office at the Department of Labor, Block hosted - with Wage and Hour Administrator David Weil and Open Societies Foundation's Ken Zimmerman - the Department's three-day symposium on the Future of Work. The symposium brought together a wide array of thought leaders to address how changes in labor markets and business models have impacts on key issues such as enforcement, labor standards, workforce development, employee benefits, and data in the U.S. and around the world.... Read more about Sharon Block
Uber drivers launched a worldwide strike days before the ride sharing giant’s IPO. Drivers went on strike to demand transparency and a living wage. All workers want a living wage, but there is something more that organizations can learn from these drivers and other gig economy workers. The uber drivers choose to remain in the gig economy, even though a traditional job might offer better pay and benefits, because they have control over their time. In fact, they value the ability to pick up a kid from school, be there for a sick...
The Economic Policy Institute 1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20005
A growing body of research shows the systematic erosion of workers’ bargaining power over the past 40-plus years is at the root of wage stagnation for working people and rising inequality. If policymakers wish to address these issues, they must look to policies that build up worker power.
The Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project, and Jobs with Justice invite you to a June 13 symposium to discuss how to proactively reclaim worker power, featuring panels and speakers discussing the range of policies and practices workers and advocates are pursuing to give people a greater say over their own workplaces.
Keynote by Sharon Block, Executive Director, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School
Recently, 23 McDonald’s workers told the company that “Time’s Up” — they stood together and filed sexual harassment claims[3] with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and lawsuits against the company. Another group of workers filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,[4] asking the federal agency to hold McDonald’s accountable for failing to take reasonable steps to protect them from on-the-job violence.
In a little-noticed National Labor Relations Board filing, the Trump administration recently has opened a new front in its war on American workers aimed squarely at efforts like those taken by these brave McDonald’s workers. The Trump-appointed general counsel of the NLRB is arguing[5] in a case on remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Tarlton and Son Inc., that workers have no protection under federal labor law if they are fired for filing a lawsuit or a claim with a federal agency to protect their rights. If successful, the general counsel’s position would mean that your employer can refuse to pay you and your coworkers the wages that you are owed and then fire you when you complain to the U.S. Department of Labor or file a lawsuit to get your money.
As Janus’ one-year anniversary approaches, a POLITICO review of 10 large public-employee unions indicates they lost a combined 309,612 fee payers in 2018. But paradoxically, all but one reported more money at the end of 2018. And collectively, the 10 unions reported a gain of 132,312members.
How did public employee unions end up with more money and in most cases with more members after a Supreme Court ruling that was expected to eviscerate both?
Uber’s IPO is about to hit the market. Ride-hail drivers head out on strike for better wages and working conditions. We look at the gig economy now. Sharon Block, LWP Executive Director is interviewed.
The Labor Department weighed in Monday on a question whose answer could be worth billions of dollars to gig-economy companies, deciding that one company’s workers were contractors, not employees.
Sharon Block, a top official in the Obama Labor Department who is executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, said it was hard to tell from the facts in the Labor Department’s letter whether the workers using the platform in question were truly independent contractors. But she said there seemed to be a stronger case to make for contractor status in that case than for Uber.
“This as a strategy makes sense,” Ms. Block said. “They set the standard in a way that makes it really clear this company gets past it, and in a way that’s going to help them in the harder cases.”
He’s the last Kennedy left in politics. He’s young, has a national profile, and has come at economics and other issues more thoughtfully and more forcefully than most of the people who are running for president.
He was already at work on a speech he was writing on his big idea: moral capitalism. A few months earlier, in late 2017, Kennedy had emailed Sharon Block, the director of the school’s Labor and Worklife Program and a former Ted Kennedy aide, asking for help in developing his concept, which he was viewing as a kind of working political philosophy. He’d come by her office early in the new year and they talked for hours, back and forth, about books to read. They kept the conversation going via email as Kennedy and his staff kept building up ideas.
Labor and Worklife Program postdoctoral fellow Phillippe Scrimger’s Ph.D dissertation “The Distributive Effects of Trade Unionism: A Look at Income Inequality and Redistribution in Canada’s Provinces” has been named the winner of the Labor and Employment Relations Association’s 2019 Thomas A. Kochan and Stephen R. Sleigh Best Dissertation Awards Competition. The Award will be formally presented at the LERA 71st Annual Meeting, June 13-16, 2019 in Cleveland, OH.
Phillippe’s dissertation was completed under adviser Gregor Murray at the University of Montreal’s School...
The Labor Department released a proposal on Monday that would limit claims against big companies for employment-law violations by franchisees or contractors.
Under the doctrine set by the board during the Obama administration, a company is considered a joint employer if it exercises direct or indirect control over workers hired by a franchisee or contractor.
But the board, now with a Republican majority, is considering ...
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 are organizing the campaign workers for Sen. Bernie Sanders', I-Vt., presidential campaign, but they are not endorsing his bid.
Wilma Liebman, former chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board, said that just because organizing a campaign staff is novel, there’s no reason why it cannot be done.
“Collective bargaining can be very flexible and adapted to the parties’ needs,” said Liebman, now senior research associate at Harvard Law School’s labor and worklife program. "Some contracts are lengthy, spelling out detailed rules and procedures. Some are just a few pages long, setting out just basic values and principles."... Read more about Sanders campaign unionization raises questions about strikes and conflicts of interest
The overtime threshold used to be the minimum wage for the middle class—but where did it go? Labor experts Sharon Block and Chris Lu join Nick and Jasmin to explain why the overtime threshold, which used to cover 65 percent of workers, today covers only 7 percent. That’s craziness! And surprise, surprise—employers love to claim that forcing you to work for free is in your own best interest. But are they telling the truth? (46 minute audio interview)
Senior Research Associate Associate Professor, York University, Toronto
Dr. David Doorey is Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Law at York University in Toronto. His research and writing in the areas of Canadian and comparative labor and employment law, industrial relations, labor and the environment, corporate social responsibility and global supply chains, and legal theory has been published in leading law journals and cited by the Supreme Court of Canada.... Read more about David J. Doorey
