Benchmarking Corporate Policies on Labor and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains
By Aaron Bernstein 
and Christopher Greenwald
Published in:
Capital Matters Occasional Paper Series
November 2009
Near majorities of large corporations have labor and human rights (LHR) policies covering their global supply chains, although far fewer have established follow-up monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. LHR supply-chain policies are also close to the norm among European companies, with the United States and Asia lagging behind. These findings are contained in the first study to benchmark LHR policies among the 2,500 companies found on the major stock market indices. The study was done by Pensions Project Senior Fellow Aaron Bernstein and Christopher Greenwald, Director of Data Content at the Swiss firm ASSET4, using ASSET4 data.
Trade Unions in Canada: All Struck Out
from The Economist Print Edition
Oct 15th 2009
Executive Director, Elaine Bernard, comments on what Canadian Unions must do to survive, in the Economist.
The Effect of the Recession: Empty Storefronts Blog
Are you noticing the effect of the recession by seeing many empty storefronts where you live? Richard Freeman, has started a blog to document this effect. He has photographed the empty storefronts that he walks by every day.
PBS' Newshour has included the blog on its story on the effects of the recession.
[Click here to see their slideshow]
You too can get involved and help document with pictures the effect of the recession on small businesses. Take a picture of storefronts in your area and upload them to the blog at:
2009 Labor and Worklife Program Annual Report
Read about what the Labor and Worklife Program has been up to recently.
[Download 2009 Labor and Worklife Annual Report]
Quantifying Labor and Human Rights Portfolio Risk
By Aaron Bernstein
Published in:
Capital Matters Occasional Paper Series
June 2009
This paper explores how pension funds and other investors can obtain data on the long-
term sustainability risks posed by the labor and human rights (LHR) activities of global
corporations, with a specific focus on supply chains.
It should be read as a companion piece to Bernstein's “Incorporating Labor and Human
Rights Risk into Investment Decisions"
(Occasional Paper, No. 2, September 2008)
[Download Occasional Paper No. 4]
[Download Occasional Paper No. 2]
Card Check 2.0: A better fix for union organizing than the Employee Free Choice Act
By Benjamin Sachs 
Posted on:
Slate Internet Magazine
April 16, 2009
Professor Sachs offers two alternatives to the currently proposed Employee Free Choice Act. Both alternatives address the
biggest fears of business and labor. Workers will be able to choose whether they want a union more freely
than they can now, and with more confidentiality than card check allows
Pensions and Capital Stewardship Project Meeting:
"Long-term Investment Decisions: Assessing the Sustainability Risks of Labor and Human Rights and other Workplace Factors Conference"
March 27-28th, 2009
The goal was to exchange ideas about how investors can begin to measure a wide range of workplace-related factors and analyze their potential materiality to long-term portfolio returns. Topics covered included labor and human rights in global supply chains; human capital factors such as employee ownership, teams, and high-performance work systems; and shareholder engagement actions on such issues. The discussion yielded recommendations such as the establishment of a network to exchange information and ideas; and the application of those findings to investment decision-making and possible engagement with corporations. A report on the meeting will be available shortly.
First Contract Arbitration: Issues and Design
By Arnold Zack
Posted on:
Labor and Employment Relations Association's Blog
March 13, 2009
The proposed Employee Free Choice Act calls for mediation and arbitration of first contracts if the parties do not reach a negotiated agreement within 90 days. By so ensuring an initial contract, the framers of the bill hope to successfully establish the beginnings of collective bargaining institutions and relationships in newly unionized workplaces. Although the bill draws on the experiences and practices of interest arbitration that have developed over many decades, as currently drafted, the bill does not spell out the particular design features of an arbitration system nor clarify how arbitration would relate to mediation, strikes, or lockouts. Addressing these issues and several others will help to show how the processes envisioned by this bill should operate.
Losing the World’s Best and Brightest
By Vivek Wadhwa, Saxenian, Freeman & Salkever
Published by:
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
March 2009
Foreign national students have come to the United States to study in increasing numbers and have participated in some of the most advanced academic research efforts to date, lending enormous brainpower to the development of technological and scientific innovations that benefitted America. Upon completion of their studies, significant numbers of foreign students have traditionally chosen to remain in the U.S. to work full-time or pursue post-doctoral work. More recently, as the economies of the developing world have grown rapidly and Western economies have grown less quickly, this paper's evidence suggests that, fewer foreign national students are wish to stay in the U.S. after graduation.
Infrastructure Finance and the Pension Fund Role in It Conference
Co -sponsored by:
Pensions and Capital Stewardship Project, LWP
and
Building & Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO
Held on February 13, 2009,
The discussion included trustees and officials of public sector and Taft-Hartley pension plans, pension and policy experts, union officials and staff, investment practitioners, and scholars. The meeting canvassed the federal policy landscape of grant, tax and other measure to support and incentivize investment in infrastructure and explored new ideas for such measures that make more pension fund investment in infrastructure practicable. Participants also reviewed the current landscape of investment opportunities for pension fund investment in infrastructure, the strengths and weaknesses of those approaches as the relate to issues of financial risk and reward as well concerns of labor, and considered new ideas for investment, among them ones involving collaborations among pension funds.
Unions Breathe Life into Democracy
By Elaine Bernard 
Published in:
Transport International,
January -March 2009,
Issue 34
Unions need to capture the enthusiasm of workers to survive and thrive. Elaine Bernard talks to the ITF about organizing globally and building union power.
The Power to Change Things: Labour Rights as Human Rights
By Elaine Bernard 
Published in:
Our Times,
December 2008/January 2009
Unions are the premier institution of a free, democratic society, promoting democracy in the workplace, as well as economic and social justice, and equality. They have this role because they are instruments of transformation of members and of society at large.
Pension Fund Investment in Infrastructure: A Resource Paper
By Larry W. Beeferman 
Published in:
Pensions Occasional Papers,
Labor and Worklife Program
Pension funds are increasingly giving thought to investment in
infrastructure in an effort to achieve substantial and stable returns
that are a match for funds' long-term liabilities. This paper describes
risk, reward, and other financial considerations that bear on that
thinking. The paper also discusses concerns about the job and labor
implications of such investments and pension fund and other response to
those concerns.
No Vacation Nation USA: A Comparison of Leave and Holiday in OECD countries
By Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt 
Published in:
European Economic and
Employment Policy Brief
No. 3 – 2007
Average annual working hours are substantially shorter in European countries and elsewhere in the world's advanced economies than they are in the United States. One important reason for the difference is that workers in the United States are less likely to receive paid annual leave and paid public holidays, and those U.S. workers that do receive paid time off generally receive far less than their counterparts in comparable economies.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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
*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 FreemanLWP 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]
Printable Version
Apply to the 99th Session of the
Harvard Trade Union
Program (HTUP)
January 11th - February 19th 2010
Organized by an interdisciplinary team of Harvard faculty, the curriculum is built around a set of core courses supported by topical seminar series and other specially arranged programs. Courses include: Strategic Planning; Leadership and Organizational Change; Labor History; Union Governance; Dispute Resolution and Arbitration.
[Click here for more information]
[More about Teresa Ghilarducci]
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Labor Stats
Percent of Workforce in Unions Since 1948
Click on image to increase size
In an effort to understand public sector unions and labor markets, The Labor and Worklife Program, with the help of Unionstats and The Labor Research Association , have compiled a massive amount of data relating to public sector unionization and general labor market trends.
Click Here to get the graphs and statistics.
