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Draft:National Employment Law Project

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The National Employment Law Project (NELP) is a U.S.-based, 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1969 and headquartered in New York City, with offices in Washington, D.C. and Berkeley, California. NELP is an "advocacy organization with the mission to build a just and inclusive economy where all workers have expansive rights and thrive in good jobs."

Together with local, state, and national partners, NELP advances its mission through legal and policy solutions, research, capacity-building, and communications. NELP leads and collaborates in fights for higher pay and just benefits, secure and safe jobs, and support at each stage in a worker's life. NELP builds worker power, and challenges rules that allow corporate harm and undue power. The organization is also transforming precarious work by raising the wage floor so that every job is a good job and everyone who wants a job can have one.

Organization

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Leadership

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Rebecca Dixon became the organization's president and chief executive officer in 2019. Dixon is a national leader in workers' rights advocacy and is sought out for her thought leadership on issues of labor and racial, gender, and economic justice.[citation needed] Prior to taking the helm in 2020, Dixon served on NELP's executive management team as chief of programs. Dixon joined NELP in 2010 and has also served as a policy analyst and senior staff attorney.

During the Great Recession, Dixon focused on securing unemployment insurance coverage expansions in 20 states and multiple extensions of federal emergency jobless aid for long-term unemployed workers.;[1] She has also testified before the U.S. Congress, offering policy recommendations for unemployment insurance modernization.[2]

In 2024, she co-authored Desegregating Opportunity: Why Uprooting Occupational Segregation is Critical to Building A Good-Jobs Economy. The report delves into occupational segregation's roots in slavery, and how activists and policymakers can dismantle these systems of oppression.[3]

History & Overview

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Founding

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NELP was founded in 1969 by Columbia Law School students as a legal aid clinic offered at Columbia University. In this iteration, NELP functioned as a legal services backup center, offering advice and resources to attorneys around the country, including reports and expert testimony. NELP brought impact and classwide litigation on behalf of workers to ensure their civil rights under the recently-passed Civil Rights Act of 1964 were not being violated by their employers.[4] Since 1969, NELP has evolved and expanded to be a leader in the fight for workers' rights and a national convener of workers' rights allies and a leader in the fight for workers' rights.

In 1979, NELP employees voted to unionize with the United Wholesale and Warehouse Workers Union, District 65, which eventually became The National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW), UAW Local 2320, AFL-CIO.

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In 1973, NELP argued its first case before the Supreme Court, Christian v. New York State Department of Labor. This case guarantees federal employees due process in evidentiary hearings on their unemployment eligibility.[5][6]

In 1973, NELP also filed a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of five black women plaintiffs in Walls v. Mississippi State Department of Public Welfare,[7] arguing that the plaintiffs were being discriminated against in hiring, a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The court ruled in favor of the workers in 1982.

Around this time, Congress created the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). NELP became an LSC back-up center, offering legal assistance on workers' rights class-action cases and. NELP provided technical assistance and legal support to neighborhood legal services offices around the country on workers' rights issues in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1994, Congress defunded all LSC backup centers, including NELP.[8]

Despite losing its federal legal services funding, NELP regained funding and continued to provide legal and policy advocacy work that helped win an increase to the federal minimum wage in 1996, labor protections for most people in workfare jobs in 1997, and federal extensions of the disaster unemployment program after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.[9][10]

Brennan Center Economic Justice Project Joins NELP  

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In 2008, a small team of attorneys, policy advocates, and researchers from the Economic Justice Project of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law joined NELP staff. The newly-expanded NELP launched a minimum wage advocacy program and significantly deepened its policy research and design capacity.

Since then, NELP has been involved in numerous advocacy campaigns for improving wage standards, including the Fight for $15 and a Union movement[11]; a 2015 campaign that won federal minimum wage and overtime protections for two million health and homecare workers; and a national health and safety campaign that successfully pushed for the USDA to withdraw a proposed Trump-era rule to speed up poultry lines impacting 250,000 workers—the majority of whom are Black, Latinx, and immigrant workers.[12]

Programs and Activities

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NELP collaborates with local, state, and national partners to advance workers' rights and economic justice. Key programs and activities include:

  • Raising the minimum wage: NELP has been instrumental in campaigns to raise the minimum wage in various states and cities around the country[13];
  • Fair Chance Employment: ensuring people with arrest or conviction records have a fair chance at employment through advocacy and policy change[14]
  • Reforming the unemployment insurance program in the aftermath of the Great Recession;
  • Contingent Worker and "Gig Economy" Protections: Advocating for basic worker protections for workers hired via apps, including fair wages and health benefits;[15][16]
  • Temporary Worker Rights: Improving conditions for temporary and subcontracted workers, and ensuring they receive proper labor rights and benefits from employers who set up the jobs[17]; and
  • Health and Safety Standards: Strengthening health and safety standards for workers across various industries.

Notable Achievements

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  • Federal minimum and overtime protections: In 2015, NELP helped secure minimum wage and overtime protections for over 2 million health and homecare workers.[18]
  • USDA Poultry Line Speed Rule: Successfully pushed for the withdrawal of a proposed rule to speed up poultry processing lines, protecting 250,000 workers.
  • Disaster Unemployment Program: Advocated for federal extensions of the disaster unemployment program after Hurricane Katrina, providing essential support to affected workers.
  • Unemployment Insurance (UI) Expansions:  In both the Great Recession and during the COVID-19 pandemic, NELP led efforts to have the federal government provide enhanced UI benefits that were of longer duration and greater amount than already-existing state UI benefits.[19][20]
  • Overtime Reform:  Led the campaign for strengthened "white collar" overtime regulations, which will extend automatic overtime protections to over 4.3 million workers as of January 1, 2025.[21][22]
  • Advocating for the EEOC's Arrest and Convictions Guidelines:; led the campaign to pass The Fair Chance Act, which "Bans the Box" for federal contract workers.[23][24]

References

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  1. ^ Rampell, Catherine (2009-06-18). "Yes, Many States Are Expanding Unemployment Benefits". Economix Blog. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  2. ^ "Education & The Workforce Committee Democrats". democrats-edworkforce.house.gov. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  3. ^ Dixon, Rebecca; Traub, Amy (2024-05-12). "Desegregating Opportunity: Why Uprooting Occupational Segregation is Critical to Building A Good-Jobs Economy". National Employment Law Project. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  4. ^ Dullea, Georgia (1980-06-30). "Female Workers Protest Scanty Uniforms; 'I Felt Like a Nonperson' Unemployment Claim Upheld". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  5. ^ "U.S. Reports: Christian v. New York Department of Labor, 414 U.S. 614 (1974)". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  6. ^ Rims, Peter (1972-02-20). "WORK‐RELIEF LAW IS TARGET OF SUIT". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  7. ^ "Walls v. Mississippi State Dept. of Public Welfare, 542 F. Supp. 281 (N.D. Miss. 1982)". Justia Law. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  8. ^ Miller, Margo (July 8, 1973). "OEO Legal Centers Imperiled". The Sunday Boston Globe. p. 81.
  9. ^ Testimony of Maurice Emsellum, hearing before the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee. 28 February 2007. NELP website. Accessed June 6, 2024. https://www.nelp.org/app/uploads/2015/03/JECTestimony-Feb2007.pdf
  10. ^ Daily Digest: House Committee Meetings; Congressional Record Vol. 153, Version 34. 28 February 2007. Accessed June 10, 2024. https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-153/issue-34/daily-digest/article/D232-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%22emsellem%22%7D&s=6&r=1
  11. ^ "Fast-food workers in Detroit joining a growing wave of walkouts over wages". Washington Post. 2023-05-18. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  12. ^ "NELP to USDA: Faster poultry-processing line speeds during COVID-19 pandemic 'irresponsible and reckless' | 2020-06-18 | Safety+Health". www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  13. ^ Ingraham, Christopher (2019-03-27). "Voters in battleground districts support $15 minimum wage proposal, survey finds". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  14. ^ Sussman, Anna Louise (April 26, 2016). "Where Just a Misdemeanor Could Keep You Out of a Job". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 6, 2024.
  15. ^ Scheiber, Noam; Conger, Kate (2020-11-11). "Fight Over Gig Workers Persists Despite Win for Uber and Lyft". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  16. ^ Scheiber, Noam (2020-04-17). "Jobless Claims by Uber and Lyft Drivers Revive Fight Over Labor Status". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  17. ^ Sussman, Anna Louise (March 25, 2016). "Contract Workforce Outpaces Growth in Silicon Valley Style 'Gig' Jobs". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 6, 2024.
  18. ^ "National Employment Law Project". PHI. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  19. ^ "Software Update Required: COVID-19 Exposes Need for Federal Investments in Technology | Committee Repository | U.S. House of Representatives". docs.house.gov. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  20. ^ "Unemployment Insurance During COVID-19: The CARES Act and the Role of Unemployment Insurance During the Pandemic | The United States Senate Committee on Finance". www.finance.senate.gov. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  21. ^ Quinlan, Casey (2023-09-07). "Millions more workers would receive overtime pay under proposed Biden administration rule • Minnesota Reformer". Minnesota Reformer. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  22. ^ "Brown Introduces Bill to Make Millions of American Workers Eligible for Overtime Pay | U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio". www.brown.senate.gov. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  23. ^ "Support H.R. 1076 (The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act of 2019)". The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
  24. ^ Emsellem, Kanya Bennett, Sakira Cook, Maurice (2019-12-20). "A Fair Chance at Opportunity: The U.S. Government Bans the Box | ACLU". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 2024-08-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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