Employment Law as Labor Law

By Benjamin Sachs
Published in:
Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 29:6, p. 2685, 2008

Faced with a traditional labor las regime that has proven ineffectual, workers and their lawyers are turning to employment statues like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964 as the legal guardians of their efforts to organize and act collectively. Workers, are relying on employment statues, not only for the traditional purpose of securing the substantive rights provided by those laws, but also as a the legal architecture that facilitates their organizational and collective activity - a legal architecture we conventionally call labor law.

[Download the paper]

Labor rights are meaningless without unions to give them life

Elaine Bernard opens Labor Rights are Human Rights International Symposium

Given by the National Union of Public and General Employees in Ottawa, Canada

The inclusion of economic rights as fundamental human rights demands that we go further than simply saying that the state, employers and courts should 'allow' workers, citizens and communities to form organizations to attempt to win contracts, legislation and rights. Rather, these institutions should be promoting organization and just and equitable outcomes," she argued.

[More information on the symposium]  

How the Disciple became the Guru: Is it time for the U.S. to learn workforce development from former disciple India?

By Vivek Wadhwa, Una Kim de Vitton and Gary Gereffi

Published in:
Global Engineering and Entrepreneurship, Duke,
July 2008

Out of necessity — because of educational weaknesses; skills shortages; competition for top talent; turnover; and rising salaries — leading businesses in India have developed highly advanced, innovative practices and that these are allowing industries in India to become globally competitive and grow rapidly. U.S. and other countries facing increased global competition can learn that workforce training and development may be essential to maintaining a competitive edge.

[Download the paper]

State of US Labor & Building Union Power

By Elaine Bernard

Published in:
Democratic Left, Fall 2008

In assessing the overall state of labor today, Bernard argues that the decline in strength, density and influence of the labor movement must be a concern for everyone – whether a union member or not.  However, union organizing to rebuild labor’s power must be more than campaigns to recruit new members.  As important as this type of growth is, unions also need to organize internally, re-energizing existing members.  Bernard argues that unions need to spend more time “lighting fires” rather than focusing on “putting them out.”

[Download the paper]

Labor Law Renewal

By Benjamin Sachs
Published in:
Harvard Law and Policy Review, Vol. 1, p. 375, 2007

This essay challenges the conventional wisdom that American labor law has reached a dead end. Sachs argues that the dysfunctionality of the National Labor Relations Act has led not to “ossification” - as many believe - but to a hydraulic effect: unable to find an outlet through the NLRA, the continuing demand for collective action has forced open alternative legal channels.

[Download the paper]

Richard Freeman featured on Today's Workplace: a Workplace Fairness Blog

Check out what Richard Freeman, Faculty Co-Chair of LWP and Harvard Professor has to say about how current problems require strong government actions. The markets will not save us from global warming, energy, financial chaos.

Click here to read his comments and add your own

Incorporating Labor and Human Rights Risk Into Investment Decisions

By Aaron Bernstein
Published in:
Pensions Occasional Papers,
Labor and Worklife Program

Mainstream investors for the first time are beginning to assess labor and human rights factors as a way of increasing returns and lowering risk as part of a broader movement in the investment world to include corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) behavior into portfolio and lending decisions. However, the paper also describes why investment analysis of labor and human rights poses some of the most difficult challenges in the emerging ESG field.

[Download the paper]

*New* Capital Matters, July 2008

Vol. 1, No. 4 | July 2008

•Experiments in Public Sector Pension Fund Design
•Accounting for Pension Fund Risk and Reward
• A Code of Conduct for Pension Trustees
• CEO Pay as a Proxy for Good Corporate Governance
• DB and DC Investment Returns Compared
• Labor, Human Rights and Investment Risk

[Capital Matters | July 2008]
[Subscribe to Capital Matters]

Big Pharma's R&D Booster Shot

By Ben Rissing and Peter Engardio
Published in:
Business Week

In their quest to develop new drugs, Western pharmaceutical companies are increasingly teaming up with companies in China and India

 [Full article in Business Week ]

Universities set the pace in labor relations

By Richard Freeman
LWP Faculty Co-Director and Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Most Americans think of auto, steel and other blue-collar workers negotiating with giant manufacturers when they think of labor relations. These industries set the pace in U.S. collective bargaining from the 1940's to the 1970's.

[Read the full article.]

America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional US Labor Market

By Richard B. Freeman
"...Readable, reasoned, compassionate and enjoyable". - Lawrence Mishel, President, Economic Policy Institute

Economist Richard Freeman, Labor & Worklife Program Faculty Co-Chair and Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University paints a picture with broad brushstrokes of the dynamic American labor market and fares compared to European and industrialized nations.

[Buy the book]
[Read the introduction]