“If the Ninth Circuit panel’s ruling in favor of Uber is allowed to stand despite AB 5’s reasonable distinctions, it would open the door to countless challenges to laws regulating the workplace and endanger the ability of legislatures to pass laws protecting workers,” write Christina Chung, executive director of the Center for Law and Work at Berkeley Law and Erwin Chemerinksy, dean of Berkeley Law.

Catherine Fisk, University of California, Berkeley Law professor, and Christina Chung, UC Berkeley Center for Law and Work executive director, argue that the US Supreme Court “simply misunderstood California law on PAGA standing; California law is clear that a plaintiff may litigate a PAGA action as a representative of the state for the labor law violations suffered by others regardless of whether the plaintiff must arbitrate her own claim.”

“We are seeing a tremendous wave of worker organizing efforts across the country and this is another way I think that workers can raise their voices and be directly involved in raising standards in industry,” said Christina Chung, executive director of the Center for Law and Work at U.C. Berkeley Law School. “It’s really exciting, and I think other states will follow suit.”

They’re on board at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, Berkeley Center for Law and Business, Human Rights Center, and Center for Law and Work.

The meeting drew from the legal, academic, and policy realms to discuss how to make police more accountable.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to crush workers, especially the lowest earners, the Center for Law and Work puts them in the spotlight.

Professor Catherine Fisk weighs in on Governor Gavin Newsom’s return to the office directive for public employees. 

UC Berkeley School of Law professor Catherine Fisk said that an employer’s intention when reviewing an employee’s email is key to determining whether a violation has occurred. If an employer reviewed a staffer’s email while they were on vacation to offload work to someone else, Fisk said, that type of search may be justified. But searching an employee’s email simply to surveil them probably would not be, she said.

Catherine Fisk, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said public support for unions is at its highest levels since the 1960s. Coupled with recent actions by the NLRB that boost union organizing, those positive attitudes about unions embolden workers to form them, whether on their own as thousands of Starbucks workers have since 2021 or by teaming up with established unions like Volkswagen employees in Tennessee who recently voted to join the United Auto Workers, she said.

“This is an effort by a group of lawyers who are foes of the administrative state and the New Deal-era legislation that created the NLRB and the SEC to essentially end enforcement of those statutes,” says Catherine Fisk, an employment and labor law authority at UC Berkeley law school.

A published study co-authored by Professor Catherine Albiston on counteracting workplace bias against mothers and caregivers is cited. 

“The key is to separate the social insurance from the employer’s control and from employment entirely, because that gives employers that are unwilling to comply with the law a lot of leverage over their employees,” said Catherine Albiston,  professor of law and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Diana Reddy weighs in on whether or not the N.L.R.B. and its underlying statute is doomed.

“Once billionaires are scared of the power of the NLRB, they bring in the big guns,” said Diana Reddy, a labor law professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Berkeley Law Professor Diana Reddy discusses what is behind this “hot labor summer” and whether the promising trends are here to stay.

Assistant professor at Berkeley Law Diana Reddy said that allegations that fall outside legally protected categories could undermine Lizzo’s body-positive message and “could certainly encourage a settlement.”