Worker Centers and Labor Law Protections: Why Aren't They Having Their Cake?

Abstract

As private sector labor union membership in the United States dwindles, the number of worker centers continues to grow. Given worker centers’ focus on low-wage workers largely engaged in service sectors of our post-industrial economy and their relatively recent entrance into the field of United States labor relations, scholars and commentators are increasingly debating the applicability of the eighty-year-old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to the worker organizing activities of these emerging organizations. Unlike prior work on the relationship between the NLRA and worker centers, this Essay considers the extent to which NLRA protections have been helpful to worker center organizing efforts to date and proposes several theories to explain why worker centers have not turned to the NLRA’s protections more proactively.