Recent Events

2024 Activities


  • January 2024: Yearly Membership Meeting and presentation from NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox.


2023 Activities


Education

  • November 29, 2022:  Labor is Essential for Democracy: Organizing Amazon and Starbucks, with Panelists Christian Smalls, Kylah Clay, and Moderator Angela Cornell

  • February 2, 2023: Building a More Equitable Animal Advocacy Movement: Exploring the Intersections of Labor Rights and Animal Advocacy

  • May 18, 2023: Overcoming Employer Opposition to Union Organizing: Lawyers and Organizers Strategizing to Win. Participants will explore in an interactive way how the panelists have approached an employer’s challenges to organizing. Panelists included: Emily Maglio, Partner at Leonard Carder, LLP and Eric Hetrick, Business Manager at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2322.


Policy

  • Supported Julie Su’s nomination to the be Secretary of Labor 


2022 activities


Education

  • Webinar featuring John Philo & Tony Paris: Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act)

  • Cuba Labor Research Delegation

Policy


Organizing Support 

  • Starbucks Workers United Support: throughout 2022, Committee members helped with intake for the Starbucks Workers United campaign, assisting attorneys working on the case in making initial contact with workers who believed their NLRA rights has been violated. 


2021 activities

  • NLG Convention CLE, “Legal & Organizing Strategies to Fight & Win Against the False Promise of the Gig Economy” 

  • NLG Convention Joint Reception with the NLG International Committee



2020 Activities 


Education and Policy


  • June 26, 2020: How Can Lawyers Support Worker Organizing in the Era of COVID-19? Watch the recording here. This discussion focused on how progressive lawyers can support worker organizing around health and safety. Organizers spoke across several sectors and engaged in a conversation on the conditions of workers during COVID-19 with a focus on how the legal community can support the surge of worker organizing under COVID-19.

    • Speakers included:

      • David Maraskin, Food Project Senior Attorney of Public Justice

      • Axel Fuentes, Executive Director of Rural Community Workers Alliance, Missouri

      • Madeline Janis, Executive Director of Jobs to Move America

      • Nafisah Ula, Organizing Director of Jobs With Justice



  • NLG’s 2020 Virtual Convention, the Committee organized and co-sponsored a 3-hour CLE asking the question “What is to be done?” about police unions. Sponsors included the  Labor and Employment Committee, National Police Accountability Project, Military Law Task Force. Amid calls for defunding police and expelling police unions from the labor movement, we explore police unions in their historical context, the relationship between law enforcement locals and other unions, the politics of expelling police unions from labor federations, an understanding of police union-management collective bargaining, including responsibility for and impact of harmful police union contract provisions, strategies to challenge police brutality while maintaining a pro-labor stance, and a discussion of the role of labor lawyers in this moment. 

  • Part I: Historical and Political Context: In this opening section, panelists situated police unions in their historical and political contexts, by giving an overview of the professionalization of policing and growth of police unions over the past century, as well as the challenges they pose for contemporary social justice movements and politics. Featuring:

    • Aaron Bekemeyer: a Harvard PhD Candidate studying the history of American capitalism in the 20th century.

    • Roger Toussaint: a labor leader who started as a cleaner in New York City's subways in 1984, became a rank and file activist, and was elected President of the 38,000 member Transport Workers Union Local 100 in NY from 2001-2009.

    • Kim Kelly: a freelance writer and organizer based in Philadelphia. 

  • Part II: Relationship within Federations and Broader Labor Movement: In this section, panelists explained the relationship between law enforcement locals, other locals, and labor federations; the internal governance processes that would enable or block expulsion of certain locals; as well as how potential expulsion would affect other workers who are members of those federations. We also engaged in a discussion of police unions’ relationship to other public unions, including whether both rhetoric and proposed changes to police unions and contracts could have collateral impact on other public sector unions and explored whether strategies developed in other public sector unions, such as bargaining for the common good, could be used to produce fairer and more transparent police contracts. In addition, panelists touched on what is encompassed when the labor movement talks about law enforcement unions: are ICE and CBP officers included; correctional facility guards, etc? What does our definition of who is included in this category mean for a call to demilitarize and defund police?

    • Ana Avendaño: a lifelong worker advocate who has served as an Associate General Counsel to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, as well as Assistant General Counsel to the AFL-CIO, and Assistant to the AFL-CIO President for Immigration and Community Action.

    • Carmen Berkley: an award winning political strategist, entrepreneur, radio host, and DJ striving to change the world through politics, social impact, creative expression, and culture.

    • David Unger: a labor educator at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, an adjunct instructor at Empire State College, and also teaches diversity, mobilizing, and organizing classes for unions and social justice organizations around New York.

  • Part III: Challenging Police Union Misconduct: in the third section, panelists explored the nuts and bolts of police union contracts and how labor law and union membership may be able to protect individuals who act as whistleblowers within their departments or who want to resist racist or violent orders by superiors. We looked at examples of provisions of police collective bargaining agreements that protect officers who have been disciplined, had civilian complaints filed against them, and committed acts of racist brutality and other crimes and discuss these provisions, what their effect on police work is, and what can be done about them. We also considered the success of failures of combating police brutality through legal means, including what systems we have to hold police accountable, including civilian review boards, litigation, and other means.

    • James M. Branum: a military criminal defense and free speech attorney, author, and past chair of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild.

    • Michelle Gross: co-founder and president of Communities United Against Police Brutality and board member of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

    • DeRay Mckesson: a civil rights activist focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity and justice. As a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement and a co-founder of Campaign Zero, DeRay has worked to connect individuals with knowledge and tools, and provide citizens and policy makers with commonsense policies that ensure equity.

    • Leo Gertner: a labor and employment lawyer and writer living in New York. He has worked with the National Employment Law Project, Service Employees International Union, United Steelworkers, and Communications Workers of America.


November 2020: NLG LEC Post-Election Statement on Labor Notes, November 2020

Labor Notes published the L&EC’s statement on the role of workers and unions to stop a Trump 'coup'.