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Re-Imagining Labor Law:
Building Worker Collectivities After the NLRA

Symposium Jointly Sponsored by UC Irvine School of Law and the Labor Law Group

February 22-23, 2013  |  UC Irvine School of Law

The goal of the symposium is to think about alternatives to the Wagner Act and employment law models of workplace protection. Eminent and rising scholars, experienced lawyers, and lawyers engaged in working with worker centers and other new types of organizations have been asked to consider fundamental questions: What are alternatives to or improvements upon the Wagner Act model of majority unions and workplace collective bargaining?  What institutional structures could be or have been created to provide dignity, opportunity and protection to work?

The panelists present a range of ideas and approaches to the challenge.  They propose to increase the voice of workers without unions and to increase transparency about workplace standards; they describe and generalize from alliances between labor and environmental groups to change local law regarding independent contractor status; they propose reforms of immigration law, changes in the structure of bargaining and union elections and changes the legal rights and obligations of unions in right to work states.  Each panel combines ideas presented by scholars for legal change with commentary by lawyers with significant contemporary experience in practice with the problems that the papers attempt to address.  It is our hope that the conversation between scholars and practitioners about the nature of contemporary workplaces, the weaknesses of the current system, and the proposals for change will yield a wide-ranging and creative discussion about realistic proposals for change and will inspire scholars and practitioners alike to consider new ways of enforcing labor standards.

In addition to the symposium program detailed below, lawyers from non-governmental organizations and law school clinics who support low-wage, immigrant worker organizing will meet throughout the day on February 23. These sessions will focus on current issues and legal capacity needs of organizers, and sharing and drafting best practices. Immigrant Worker Center Sessions program (PDF)

FEATURED SPEAKERS

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22

8:30 a.m.  Welcome and Introduction:  Catherine Fisk and Sameer Ashar (UCI Law)

8:45 – 10:30 a.m.  Considering New Forms and Goals of Organizing

• Lance Compa, Cornell ILR
  Preserving the Best and Exploring the Alternatives
• Scott Cummings, UCLA Law
  Importing Standards:  The Los Angeles Clean Trucks Program
• Discussants:  Chris Williams (Workers’ Law Office, P.C.);  Haeyoung Yoon (National Employment Law Project)

10:30 – 10:45 a.m.  Coffee Break

10:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.  Immigrant Worker Organizations

• Stephen Lee, UCI School of Law
  Can Criminal Justice Address Immigrant Labor Injustice?
• Jayesh Rathod, American University Law
  Riding the Wave: Uplifting Worker Organizations through Comprehensive Immigration Reform
• Discussant:  Betty Hung (Asian Pacific American Legal Center); Chris Newman (National Day Laborer Organizing Network)

12:30 – 1:30 p.m.  Lunch

1:30 – 3:15 p.m.  Re-Imagining Union Relations with Members and Non-Members

• Ben Sachs, Harvard Law, & Catherine Fisk, UCI Law
  A Federal Right to Members Only Representation in Right to Work States
• Michael Oswalt, SEIU Law Fellow
  Imagining a Proactive Labor Law: Automatic Elections and Less Ambitious Proposals
• Brian Olney, UCI Law
  Paycheck Protection or Paycheck Deception?  When Government "Subsidies" Silence Political Speech
• Discussants:  Wilma Liebman (former Chair, National Labor Relations Board); Dan Clifton (Lewis, Clifton & Nikolaidis, P.C.)

3:15 – 3:30 p.m.  Refreshments

3:30 – 5:15 p.m.  International and Comparative Innovations

• Matt Dimick, SUNY Buffalo Law
  Transforming the Structure of Bargaining
• Chris Tilly & Marie Kennedy, UCLA ILR
  Latin America’s “third left” meets U.S. worker centers: A promising direction for worker protection?
• Cesar Rosado, Chicago-Kent Law
  How International Framework Agreements Can Help Organize American Workers
• Discussants:  Fran Ansley (University of Tennessee); Katherine Stone (UCLA Law)

5:15 – 6:00 p.m.  Reception

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23

8:30 – 10:15 a.m.  Enhancing Speech and Transparency

• Marion Crain, Washington University Law
  After Unions
• Cynthia Estlund, NYU Law
  Exploring the Implementation of the Case for Workplace Transparency
• Discussant:  Noah Zatz (UCLA Law)

10:15 - 10:30 a.m.  Coffee

10:30 – 11:30 a.m.  New Initiatives and Challenges in Unions Representing Workers in Nontraditional Work Relationships at the High and Low Ends of the Pay Spectrum

• Judith Scott, General Counsel, Service Employees International Union
• Anthony Segall, General Counsel, Writers Guild of America, West
• Moderators:  Marion Crain (Washington University, Law),  Ben Sachs  (Harvard Law)  

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.  Roundtable Discussion of All in Attendance About the Ideas Presented

• Deborah Malamud, NYU Law, moderator
• Participants:  All in attendance.

12:30 – 1:00 p.m.  Concluding Thoughts (Box lunches)