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News and Announcements

News clippings and updates featuring our scholars, staff, and research assistants at the Workers' Rights Institute, as well as examples of our advocacy.

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WRI Event: Spotlighting Workers’ Rights In Labor Spring

March 20, 2023

On March 20 at 3-5pm, the Workers’ Rights Institute will host a workers’ rights forum as part of Labor Spring, a nationwide series of more than 60 labor teach-ins and events on campuses and in communities nationwide. Speakers will include Sara Steffens, Secretary-Treasurer, Communications Workers of America; Erica Smiley, Director, Jobs with Justice; Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board ; Sen. Sherrod Brown; Aleah Bacetti & Thanya Cruz Borrazá, Starbucks Workers United; and Elissa McBride, Sec-Treas, AFSCME.

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WRI Director, Mark Gaston Pearce, Discusses Starbucks' Escalating Anti-Union Tactics on Texas Public Radio

March 1, 2023

Following an incident at a San Antonio Starbucks, in which management called the police on worker-organizers for dress code violations, WRI Director, Mark Gaston Pearce, comments on Texas Public Radio about the coffee giant's union busting strategy. “What Starbucks management is doing is engaging in — what it sounds like — a wholesale repudiation of any kind of labor law adherence,” Gaston Pearce remarked.

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WRI Director Mark Gaston Pearce Interviewed for Labour Research

February 1, 2023

WRI affiliate fellow Jason Moyer-Lee interviewed the Institute's Director, Mark Gaston Pearce, for the February issue of Labour Research. The article focuses on the current moment in U.S. organizing and the uptick in union campaigns, especially at large corporations like Amazon and Starbucks. Gaston Pearce delivers an assessment of the legal environment and the strengths and weaknesses of the National Labor Relations Act.

WRI Signs onto Letter to Congress on the National Labor Relations Board Funding Crisis

November 29, 2022

As part of its continued advocacy for Workers' Rights, WRI has signed onto a letter to congressional leadership calling for funding increases for the Board, which over nine years has experienced a budget decrease of 25 percent in real dollars. Budgetary action is required to match massive energy from workers organizing across the country at record rates.

After 3 Decades, Yale Graduate Workers Are Finally Unionizing

December 7, 2022

WRI Director Mark Gaston Pearce comments on the historic unionization of graduate workers at Yale University. Mr. Gaston Pearce chaired the NLRB when the Board issued its decision in Columbia University, opening the door to petitions from graduate students.

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WRI RA Keniece Gray Wins Prestigious Labor Scholarship

December 1, 2022

The Workers' Rights Institute is proud to announce that RA Keniece Gray has been awarded the prestigious William J. Curtin Endowed Scholarship in Labor Relations after publishing in Summer 2022 on the lack of intersectional awareness in #MeToo reforms with faculty advisor Jamillah Bowman Williams.

Citing Religious Exemptions, A Florida University Shuts Down Its Faculty Union

November 28, 2022

WRI Director Mark Gaston Pearce comments on Edward Waters University's decision to shut down its faculty union based on the religious exemption opened by the Trump Board. “This board has a lot of fish to fry. There are a lot of corrections they feel they have to make relative to the slash-and-burn experience of the last term,” he states, ruminating on when and if the Biden Board would get to reversing the controversial decision.

Banning workers from suing their employer hurts people of color and women most BY M. Isabelle Chaudry and Jamillah Bowman Williams

February 21, 2022 Opinion, WRI Event

Last week, Congress passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, which will block enforcement of arbitration requirements for workers alleging sexual harassment or assault. Arbitration is the process of handling disputes outside of the court system — forced arbitration prohibits workers from suing their employer altogether.

This is an important outcome for the #MeToo movement and has the potential to reach many workers and employment claims, depending on how broadly or narrowly it is interpreted.

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CARES Act has holes for workers

April 1, 2020 COVID-19 Updates

“Low-income workers who are most impacted—they deal in things like retail, hospitality, childcare and the gig economy—these are jobs that they cannot perform remotely so it’s not like you can get on a Zoom conference and do your work. You have to be physically there,” said Mark Gaston Pearce, former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under the Obama administration and current executive director of Georgetown Law’s Workers’ Rights Institute. “The majority (of employers in that arena) do not offer paid sick leave or health insurance. Research has shown that low income is associated with a higher rate of chronic health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, and these are factors that increase your vulnerability to COVID-19.”

Maryland residents who can’t work from home are navigating their jobs to stay safe amid coronavirus

March 19, 2020 COVID-19 Updates

"[UFCW] Local 27 wants the government to provide supermarket employees with protective equipment, free coronavirus testing, protections against unfair termination or discrimination for any exposed workers, unemployment benefits for displaced workers and additional aid to help low-income families take care of their children, he said.

“Our members are on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak and they need our financial support,” Chorpenning said. “They are performing an essential role during this crisis, and they must be able to do their jobs to meet the explosive demand for health and food.”"

Covid-19 puts America's low-wage workforce in an even worse position

March 19, 2020 COVID-19 Updates

"As the government engages in discussions with industry groups, negotiations should include business practices on issues such as worker pay, benefits, and training that can lift workers out of the near-poverty they were already facing.

At some point, this crisis will pass. As we move through it, let’s seek to create jobs that can sustain families and communities and promote broad-based economic well-being—not simply return to the status quo."

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We Cannot Turn Our Back on the National Labor Relations Act

February 10, 2020

"Although union density has diminished, workplace inequities have caused workers' desires for union membership to grow. And while anti-labor sentiment has seemingly been institutionalized, it is losing ground in the court of public opinion." — Mark Gaston Pearce, WRI Executive Director

2020 Committee on Practice & Procedure Under the NLRA

March 7, 2020

WRI Executive Director Mark Gaston Pearce traveled to the ABA Labor and Employment sections' conference in San Juan, PR to speak before experts in the field on how the new NLRB election rule will cause more challenges to workers' ability to organize.

Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2019 Passes the House

February 6, 2020

The PRO Act proposes to expand the NLRB's ability to offer workers compensation for harms suffered, to make injunctive relief in the event of employer unfair practices mandatory instead of optional, to create an avenue for workers to bring a civil action in Federal court, and to make joining a Union and negotiating a first contract substantially easier.

WRI Executive Director Mark Gaston Pearce offered testimony to the House based on his own experiences as Chairman of the Board. He emphasized the importance of reevaluating the procedural difficulties and the limitations that have impeded the NLRB from fulfilling the NLRA's dual mission to make harmed workers whole and to deter future unlawful conduct by employers.

“As the Board’s experience in Pacific Beach Hotel shows, when employers discover that the cost of noncompliance is so low, they sometimes violate the law frequently over the course of many years. It isn’t difficult to understand why.” — Mark Gaston Pearce on the remedial limitations of the NLRB.

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Mark G. Pearce

Executive Director
600 New Jersey Avenue NW Washington DC 20001
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MARK.PEARCE@georgetown.edu