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Revisiting U.S. Labor Law As A Restriction To Works Councils: A Key For U.S. Global Competitiveness, Neil Bucklew, Nicholas Digiovanni Jr., Jeffery D. Houghton, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

Works councils, institutionalized bodies that facilitate representative communication between an employer and its employees, have expanded on a global scale in recent decades due, in large part, to their ability to increase employee representation, firm productivity and profitability, and social responsiveness. The United States has been notably absent from the global works-councils movement primarily because of an outdated, New Deal-era labor-relations system that generally prohibits these types of worker participation structures. The Authors provide a detailed overview of U.S. labor law in relation to works councils before presenting three contrasting options for increasing worker participation in the United States via …