Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

4-7-2020

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; PSN Subject Matter eJournals; Social Insurance Research Network; Law & Society eJournals; Law & Society: Private Law eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Political Science Network; Employment, Labor, Compensation & Pension Law eJournals; Political Economy - Development eJournals

Abstract

This short essay responds to currently circulating suppositions about how COVID19 will impact"”specifically will improve"”working conditions in America once the pandemic has concluded I argue that these predictions are cautiously optimistic rationally deduced from ongoing events and thoroughly unlikely to be realized As worldtransforming as COVID19 has already proven to be I show that both governmental and corporate responses to date do not support optimistic assessments as to the pandemic's effects on labor and employment law in the United States I also respond to various analogies that have been drawn to previous worldtransforming events as a way of supporting the idea that the pandemic will change working conditions in America for the better and I show why either those analogies rely on bad history or are simply faulty in the way they compare previous events to COVID19 The lesson"”because even in these difficult times papers by academics must have lessons"”is as grim as the news about the virus itself America's problematic labor system is far more resilient than the workers who suffer because of it

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