In a new policy brief for the Roosevelt Institute think tank, Professor Diana S. Reddy looks at recent innovations by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has created policies responsive to economic and institutional realities without the statutory reform many scholars and experts thought would be required to do so.
For more than 20 years, she writes, labor law scholars have lamented what’s known as the “ossification” of labor law and the brittle, outdated policies that created. Many have proposed significant blueprints for change. But Reddy argues that the emergence of workers interested in unionizing and a more proactive NLRB have made labor law more relevant and responsive than it’s been in decades, aided by a pro-union President Joe Biden.
Now, many of the board’s innovations are under attack, Reddy writes — from the courts, anti-union corporations, and politicians. But that opposition shouldn’t take away from what the board has accomplished while there was political will to do it.
“As it turns out, the state had much greater capacity to use existing legal authority to protect and support workers — all workers, unionized or not — than it had been using; what was missing was the political will to do so,” she writes. “Will the Board’s recent efforts survive? As a legal matter, they should. As a political matter, well, that depends on us.”