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Professor Michael Z. Green teaches future attorneys the essentials of labor and employment law at Texas A&M University School of Law. He calls it “a labor of love.” (Courtesy photo | Michael Z. Green)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Michael-Green-aM-law.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Michael-Green-aM-law.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>Michael Z. Green directs the Workplace Law Program at Texas A&M University School of Law. His experience as a manager, fresh out of college, led him to get a law degree as well as a master’s in human resources and industrial labor relations. He’s worked in a corporate legal department, a firm representing labor unions and a boutique employment law firm. He calls his current role teaching and mentoring students in workplace law a “labor of love.”This Labor Day, Green talked to the Report’s Shomial Ahmad about the gains of the labor movement, some key workplace protections, and songs that belong on his Labor Day playlist. Shomial Ahmad: Work governs most of our days. For many people, we spend more time at work than we do with our families. What drew you to labor and employment law, both from the employee and the employer side?Michael Z. Green: Through the years, I’ve learned how central work is to people’s lives. Other than family, close friends, or their faith, nothing is more important to people’s lives than their work experiences.It’s central to my life. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a low-income area known as Englewood. My mother did not graduate from high school, but she later obtained her GED and eventually graduated from college when I was a junior in high school. She became a transportation manager and supervisor, and she was a tremendous role model for me regarding the value of family, faith and the importance of education and work. I went to college and obtained an engineering degree. By the time I was 23, I was supervising maintenance mechanics and electricians at a manufacturing facility. Many were much older than me, some even older than my own grandmother. They all had established families and were all seeking to make their lives better through their work. I had to learn how to discipline, promote and help them as they dealt with the ongoing pressures of daily life. Many situations arose where I had to document truly difficult personnel issues. I was repeatedly told the lawyers would handle it. I eventually decided I wanted to be one of those lawyers, so I went on to get a dual degree: a law degree and a master’s in human resources.I often tell myself a version of another saying: “To work is human, but to love your work is divine.” And I truly love my work.Ahmad: Labor Day celebrates working and the gains of the American labor movement. You come from Chicago, where there’s a strong union presence. What’s the historic significance of the labor movement, and how do we benefit from it today?Green: Chicago is a great labor town with a tremendous labor history from railroad workers, to auto workers, to teachers, to police officers, and many public sector and private manufacturing workers. Concerns about workers and how to create jobs for a fair wage have continued to be one of our country’s greatest challenges and areas of focus. Many hard-fought battles were initiated by organized labor, including having weekends off, maximum 8-hour workdays and 40-hour workweeks, minimum wage efforts and overtime premiums. And it includes major employee benefits such as retirement plans, health care coverage, leave days with pay including sick days and, yes, leaves with pay for holidays such as Labor Day. During the pandemic, discussions about working conditions and worker safety have become of paramount consideration. Individual workers, concerned about their health and safety and businesses, concerned about how to continue under such dire circumstances, faced difficult and gut-wrenching decisions about how to treat workers fairly.But coming out of a pandemic and also the coinciding growth of national social movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, coalitions with organized labor aimed at improving conditions for all workers began to not only grow but they began to prosper. Successful organizing efforts at workplaces such as Amazon and Starbucks as well as at grocery stores, hospitals and universities, where many of those workers were forced to endure ongoing health and safety concerns as essential workers, has created a new resurgence in organized labor activities. We can all benefit by allowing mechanisms that foster engagement between unions and employees, including helping government agencies in better protecting worker rights rather than gutting the abilities of these agencies.Ahmad: Texas is a “right-to-work” state, where employees are not required to join a union or pay union dues. What are some of the gains — or lack of gains — from the labor movement in Texas, or at the local level? Green: I always view the concept of being in a right-to-work state as a hindrance but not a complete detriment to union organizing. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the primary federal agency involved in enforcing protections for workers engaged in organized labor activities, has one of its regional offices right here in Fort Worth. That tells me that there is a lot of labor organizing that goes on in Texas despite this being a right-to-work state.But workers can voluntarily agree to join unions in right-to-work states. Throughout the country after the pandemic, there’s been a resurgence in the number of union representation petitions being filed with the NLRB. And in Texas, you’re seeing that resurgence in terms of landmark gains being made by nurses organizing at hospitals in the state.Ahmad: There are certain federal protections that workers have, even if they are “at-will.” Can you talk about some of these protections? Green: Most workers start off as at-will employees who can be terminated at the will of their employers. But state and federal laws create a host of exceptions to the at-will employment rule. At Texas A&M School of Law, there are three semester-long courses you could take to cover all these exceptions.But employees are protected for raising workplace concerns together — what’s known as concerted activity — under federal labor law. There are also wage and hour, workplace safety, and employee benefits laws that also protect workers in many ways. Ahmad: If you had a playlist of some songs that tell the story of work, or what it means to work, what songs would be on that playlist? Green: You’re asking a Chicago sports and labor guy — not a music guy — this question. Funny thing is, I do have a list. I compiled a list of songs when I began to teach virtually during the pandemic. Some of them I used during my teaching. There was Hall and Oates’ “I Can’t Go for That,” Pebbles’ “Giving You the Benefit,” TLC’s “No Scrubs,” Teddy Pendergrass with Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes’ “Wake Up Everybody,” and The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” They all involved some interpretation on how the lyrics applied to work situations. Then there were the more direct songs, such as Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money,” Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” and the always famous Tennessee Ernie Ford song, “16 Tons.” I did not get to use a lot of them as I found my students getting distracted. They spent more time clapping and singing than listening to my lecture. Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus. Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.