AFL-CIO Offers New Legal Fellowship
The AFL-CIO Legal Department has announced a new fellowship opportunity for recent law school graduates. The one-year fellowship will begin in September 2012.
The fellowship offers an excellent opportunity for recent law school graduates to work with experienced union-side lawyers on a variety of issues, including litigation, policy, regulatory and legislative matters, assisting with organizing campaigns and corporate governance issues.
AFL‑CIO’s litigation icludes cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the NLRB and a small number of state appellate courts.
Also, the AFL-CIO fellow will participate in activities relating to the Lawyers Coordinating Committee (LCC). The LCC is a national organization of union-side attorneys, which produces publications and holds educational conferences. Activities here will include preparation for attorney conferences, outreach to new labor lawyers and law students, and regular opportunities to attend LCC meetings and conferences.
Click here for more details on the fellowship including eligibility requirements and application instructions.
Proposed NLRB Rule Requires Employers to Post Workers’ Rights
Most workers have seen notices about their right to a minimum wage or safe workplace posted in the company break room or elsewhere on the job. Employers are required to post those notices by federal law.
But there is no requirement for employers to post any sort of notice about workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including the right to form a union. Now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is proposing a rule that would require employers to post such notices in the workplace.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the proposed rule is “a common sense policy needed in today’s workplace.”
Every working person in America deserves to know his or her rights… [The rule]…ensures that workers’ rights are effectively communicated in the workplace. It is necessary in the face of widespread misunderstanding about the law and many workers’ justified fear of exercising their rights under it. Read the rest of this entry »
Law and Faith at Center of Ky. Labor Lawyer’s Career
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Dave Suetholz says he wanted a career built on his Catholic faith. So he became a labor lawyer.
“Look at the principles of the labor movement—solidarity, standing with your neighbors, caring about your neighbors. That’s a fundamentally Christian idea that flows directly from the love commandment. Unions are a vehicle to a more just world. The Lord’s Prayer says, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Suetholz, 33, is general counsel for the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, the Bluegrass State’s name for what most states call the Department of Labor. The Fort Mitchell native started his career as a law clerk for the Mine Workers (UMWA) in Washington, D.C. He went to work for Kentucky Labor Secretary J.R. Gray after becoming a partner in Segal, Lindsay and Janes, a Louisville law firm that represents unions.
He admits he is a rarity in Kentucky. “I’m a liberal Democrat,” he says, grinning. He also confesses he wasn’t born union. “My parents are Republicans. My dad is a family doctor.”
NY Times: Nation’s Labor Laws Weak and Irrelevant
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The New York Times reports that the 75-year old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the nation’s main labor law, is not getting better with age, but has become irrelevant for most workers and employers.
Reporter Steven Greenhouse highlights a new paper by Harvard Professor Richard Freeman, which finds that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), created by the NLRA, has not improved the process by which workers decide if they want a union. Instead, it has turned union elections in the private sector “into massive employer campaigns against unions.” You can read Greenhouse’s entire article here.
Law Student Union Summer Inspires Next Generation of Labor Lawyers
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The next generation of labor lawyers spent this summer learning firsthand what it’s like to work on the front lines of union organizing campaigns and the many problems workers face when they try to form a union.
Nine law students spent 10 weeks as AFL-CIO Law Student Union Summer (LSUS) interns working with labor lawyers across the country. During the program, which ends Aug. 6, students were involved in community outreach, member mobilization, corporate research, legislative campaigns and general litigation, canvassing, planning and implementing solidarity-building activities and participating in meetings and home visits.
For Krysten Skogstad, her experiences this summer fired up her passion for justice. The soon-to-be third-year student at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, spent most of her internship working with UNITE HERE! Local 226 in Las Vegas, helping workers at the Stations Casino exercise their freedom to join a union. She says:
While I gained a tremendous amount of legal knowledge this summer, the highlight has been working with and learning from some of the top organizers and researchers in the country. I am leaving with a strong understanding of labor’s legal needs and an even stronger sense of community. I am proud to be part of the Stations Casino campaign and proud to be part of the movement! Si se puede!
Read the rest of this entry »
Late to the Game, Wyoming’s Enzi Seeks to Derail Labor Nomination
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.)—who brags about blocking health care reform (more on that later)—now wants to block President Obama’s choice of Patricia Smith to be the top Department of Labor lawyer.
Earlier this week, Enzi apparently got around to reading the transcripts of Smith’s May 7 confirmation hearing for solicitor of labor. Now, some three-and-a-half months after sitting through the hearing and voicing no objections to Smith’s answers or nomination, he wants Obama to withdraw Smith’s name, reports BNA’s Daily Labor Report (subscription required).
