Strengthening the collective bargaining rights of precarious workers under US labour and employment law created by Owen Herrnstadt

This paper focuses on proposals that would strengthen the rights of precarious workers in the US by incorporating some aspects of international labour standards that, among other things, would require coverage of many precarious workers by US employment and labour laws. In order to understand the basis for these proposals, the first section of the paper describes the nature of precarious workers in the US. The second section describes the limited coverage of precarious workers by US employment and labour law to precarious workers. It specifically focuses on the reasons that, the National Labor Relations Act, which governs workers' rights to form a union and engage in collective bargaining, is often not available to precarious workers. The last section of this paper describes the advantages and disadvantages of various proposals that would extend the protections provided by US employment and labour laws to precarious workers.