MISSION STATEMENT
The Labor & Employment Committee of the National Lawyers Guild (the Committee) is a national committee of the National Lawyers Guild. We seek to advance the interests of working people and organized labor through education and advocacy, support for their individual and collective actions, and any other efforts necessary and appropriate to the advancement of these interests, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.
HISTORY
Labor and employment issues have been a central focus of the National Lawyers Guild during its more than 85-year history. Some of the earliest Guild members were labor lawyers. In the 1930s, Guild lawyers helped organize the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and supported the New Deal in the face of determined American Bar Association opposition.
The Labor and Employment Committee has a long record of action on behalf of low paid and immigrant workers in particular. Over the years, Committee members have engaged in training on National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) Section 7 rights, immigrants rights, amicus briefs in support of worker organizing, and educational panels, training and webinars to provide member education about labor and employment matters.
The Committee also engages in international solidarity work. Between roughly 1999 to 2022, the Committee led a yearly delegation to Cuba to carry out solidarity activities with the labor movement in Cuba.
From 1999 to 2020, the Committee published a newsletter, detailing Labor and Employment law issues of the day. Issues of the newsletter can be found here.
The Committee currently has members in 26 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.