Does Work Law Have a Future if the Labor Market Does Not?

This Essay is based on the 37th Annual Kenneth M. Piper Lecture. It offers a new perspective on the much-discussed “future of work.” That discussion typically highlights changes within the labor market that undermine the employment relationship’s role as the bedrock for work regulation. But might something even deeper be afoot, namely the disintegration of “the labor market” itself? Several recent developments challenge the legal construction of employment as occurring wholly inside a distinctive, and distinctively economic, market sphere. This Essay considers Uber and the relationship between work and “sharing,” Hobby Lobby and the relationship between work and religion, the unrest in Ferguson and the relationship between work and criminal justice, and Friedrichs and the relationship between work and politics. Each presents a conservative challenge to labor and employment law by blurring the boundaries between the labor market and other spheres, not by purging the labor market of noneconomic intrusions in the manner of laissez faire. This development presents a conundrum for traditional labor and employment law, which simultaneously defines its object in market terms while aspiring to reshape by incorporating certain nonmarket values

Does Work Law Have a Future if the Labor Market Does Not? - The 37th Annual Kenneth M. Piper Lecture

The theme of the 37th Annual Kenneth M. Piper Lecture in Labor Law is Does Work Law Have a Future if the Labor Market Does Not? Professor Noah D. Zatz lectures with Ms. Akiko Teguchi as a commentator. Noah Zatz’s interests include employment & labor law, welfare law & anti-poverty policy, work/family issues, feminist legal & social theory, and liberal political theory. Professor Zatz’s primary focus is on which activities become recognized and protected as work, how work is defined in relationship to markets, and how the boundaries of markets are themselves mediated by gender and race, among other things. His published scholarship engages these questions by studying the legal concepts of work in welfare work requirements and employment in labor & employment law, especially with regard to the status of family caretaking, prison labor, workfare, and sex work. Professor Zatz also works in employment discrimination law, where he focuses on inequality produced by workers’ interactions not only with employers and coworkers but also with actors and institutions outside the workplace, such as customers or the criminal justice system. Akiko Teguchi is a Senior Researcher for International Labour Standards, Minister’s Secretariat, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan and is a lecturer of International Labor Issues at Chuo University. Runtime: 1:24:1

Supporting Workers by Accounting for Care

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