A hundred years ago, U.S. workers had no legal right to join unions or to earn a minimum wage; women made up just 20 percent of the workforce; the Department of Labor was just a dozen years old. And the family of an immigrant cigar maker honored his passing with a gift to Harvard to advance the study of labor relations.
One hundred years later, tens of millions of workers have exercised the right to join a union; women now make up almost half of the workforce and have risen throughout the ranks in many areas of the economy and society (including the labor movement); the Department of Labor is now responsible for protecting workers’ right to a safe workplace, minimum wage, overtime and family and medical leave.
Over the past 100 years, the Jacob Wertheim Research Fellowship for the Betterment of Industrial Relations, established in 1923 as a gift from the Wertheim family, has made it possible for The Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School to support cutting-edge scholarship on topics in industrial relations ranging from labor, climate, and the just transition to AI, technology, and worker protections.
Wertheim Fellowships, awarded to support original research and publications in the field of labor relations, have supported the research and publication of 55 books, and numerous papers.
To celebrate the centennial of the fellowship, CLJE held a research symposium on June 3 to honor the legacy of the fellowship and to look to the future of labor research. The symposium featured past and present CLJE fellows, including a letter from Wertheim Fellow and Secretary of Labor in the Carter Administration Ray Marshall, and covered current research topics such as labor and climate, AI and the future of work, and labor law reform. The day concluded with a reception at the Harvard Art Museums, which featured remarks by former congressman and diplomat Joe Kennedy III ’09, and a viewing of the Maurice Wertheim Collection.
