This Document Supplement accompanies the third edition of Modern Labor Law in the Private and Public Sectors: Cases and Materials (2021).

This article, part of a symposium on the history of various areas of labor and employment law, gives an overview of public-sector labor law and labor relations in the past thirty years. The public sector has for decades been central to labor relations in the U.S.; increasingly, it has also acquired a high profile in the political world. Despite great successes in organizing by public-sector unions, public-sector labor law has long been in a state of tumult (including, but not limited to, high-profile laws passed in 2011 gutting the rights of such unions). Although by the 1980s, it seemed as if public-sector collective bargaining was widely (if not universally) accepted, and that it functioned fairly well, the next three decades featured surprising upheavals. Because there is so much variation within the public sector (it is mainly state and local law), there is no single story of the past three decades. This article discusses illustrative events in this period, events which helped shape the broader history of labor relations. It starts with early history of public-sector labor law, then moves to the last three decades. For the 1980s, it discusses two key (and contrasting) events of the early part of the decade: the crushing defeat of the PATCO strike, and the enactment of the Ohio public-sector labor statute. It then discusses some significant twists and turns in the 1990s. Moving to the twenty-first century, it discusses some (mostly positive) trends for public-sector unions in the first decade of the century, but then turns to the wave of anti-union legislation in 2011 and beyond -- although even here, there are some developments in the other direction, e.g. union rights for TSA employees. These events feature defeats and victories over issues as basic as whether public employees should have the right to bargain collectively at all, and they have shaped the entire U.S. labor movement, including the public sector. The also show how public-sector labor relations remains a strangely unsettled issue. The final sections discuss the practical and theoretical policy issues at stake, and attempt to make some predictions for the future.

Barack Obama's famous "Blueprint for Change," part and parcel of the campaign that culminated in his historic election as U.S. president in November 2008, openly announced his support for the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1409) suggesting that major change was imminent in U.S. labor and employment law. Although promised legislative change has yet to materialize, there appears to be a growing consensus that the current system for addressing employment disputes in union-represented and non-union workplaces deserves renewed attention and needs significant restructuring. Thus, the issues taken up by this prominent U.S. conference remain relevant to policy debates which will likely continue to rage in the United States for years to come. Based on papers delivered at the 2009 conference of the New York University School of Law's Center on Labor and Employment Law - the 62nd in this venerable and highly influential series - the book presents articles updated by the authors to reflect more recent developments, as well as new papers to ensure a comprehensive and current analysis of both what has actually changed and which trends seem to be gaining momentum. Twenty-two outstanding scholars and practitioners in U.S. labor law and practice pay special attention to such issues as the following: mandatory arbitration of employment disputes in non-union sector; call for improved administration of the National Labor Relations Act in expediting elections and reinstating discriminatees; more privatized forms of dispute resolution such as arbitration and mediation; card-check and neutrality agreements bypassing government processes; proposed reform of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; evaluating market-based defenses to pay equity claims; EEOC initiatives in public enforcement of equality law; and challenges to labor relations in state and local governments.