The Center for WorkLife Law is an advocacy and research organization at UC Hastings Law that seeks to advance racial, gender, and class equity. At WorkLife Law, we address inequality at a structural level by developing and implementing concrete, evidence-based interventions in schools and workplaces and changing public policy at the state and national levels. We are extremely strategic in how we approach each structural intervention, forging partnerships with grassroots groups and field experts to identify the best change levers to tackle the problem at hand. With our interventions, we aim to produce dramatic changes within a two to five year timeframe. Our main areas of impact are economic security, maternal & child health, education equity, and racial and gender justice in the workplace. Throughout the pandemic, our team has also mobilized a COVID-19 emergency response, applying our legal expertise to help protect workers’ rights during the crisis.
These are just some of the problems that U.S. workers currently face. At the Center for WorkLife Law, we intervene on these problems through both systems-level change and individual interventions.
In her TED talk Why Corporate Diversity Programs Fail & How Small Tweaks Can Have a Big Impact, the Center for WorkLife Law’s Founding Director Joan C. Williams explains why the basic tools of the diversity-industrial complex don’t work, and provides a straightforward approach for CEOs and business leaders seeking to address structural racism within their organizations.
The Center’s Deputy Director, Liz Morris, testified before the California State Assembly’s Labor and Employment Committee in support of the Bill AB 1119, which would make it illegal for California employers to discriminate against workers with family responsibilities.
The Center for WorkLife Law provides testimony in support of the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act to the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor.
