Employment and Labor Law

At an event last week to celebrate the launch of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School, Sen. Elizabeth Warren outlined what she said are the many opportunities and challenges now facing the labor movement.  

This is an encouraging moment for labor law — and a potentially scary one as well, according to Harvard Law School Professor of Practice Sharon Block.

"My hope is that workers bank power for when things aren’t as good and build unions to protect themselves," says Sharon Block.

Sharon Block, a labor policy expert who most recently served as acting administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Biden administration, has been appointed professor of practice.

Two Harvard Law experts say the suit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores faces many challenges, but that if he can get it heard in court, Flores has ‘a good story.’

In her new role as U.S. trade representative, Tai ’01 brings legal expertise, political savvy, and a deep commitment to American workers.

Harvard Law Today asked Professor Benjamin Sachs to tell us if the Biden administration is keeping its promises on labor and employment, how it’s doing — and what problems it may encounter down the road.

The effect of COVID-19 on the law has been transformative and wide-ranging, but as a Harvard Law School panel pointed out on the one-year anniversary of campus shutdown, the changes haven’t all been for the worse.

Since President Joe Biden took office in January, dozens of Harvard Law community members, including faculty and alumni, have been tapped to serve in high-profile positions in his administration

Sharon Block and Ben Sachs of Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program discuss COVID-19’s continued impact on the workplace and worker’s rights to a safe and healthy work environment.

Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance remains a mystery. Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith set out to solve it through the primary suspect — his beloved stepfather, from whom he had been estranged for 20 years.

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Fellow Mary Gray, senior researcher at Microsoft Research, talks about her book “Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass."

Richard Barbecho ’19 is this year’s winner of the Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman, who spearheaded the pro bono requirement at Harvard Law School.

As part of national Pro Bono Week, from Oct. 22 to Oct. 27, Harvard Law School's Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs is highlighting the work of outstanding attorneys engaged in critical pro bono legal work in the areas of immigration, civil rights, economic justice and climate change.

On August 31, Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program, in collaboration with the University of Reading, organized a workshop on the “Past and Future of Labor Provisions in the Context of Trade.”

In July, Harvard’s Labor and Worklife Program began an ambitious effort to fix a broken system of labor laws. The program, with the overall title “Rebalancing Economic and Political Power: A Clean Slate for the Future of Labor Law,” began with a daylong seminar at Wasserstein Hall last month.

In January, Ben Sachs, the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry, filed an amicus brief in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, urging the Supreme Court to reject Janus's challenge on the ground that it does not raise a valid First Amendment claim.