sit-in in the conference room

In the middle of the twentieth century everyone knew that people who owned stuff and people who didn't were enemies. Courts and congress assumed labor and management would fight, and they made law in order to groom the playing field for them.

Today unions represent 8% of the workforce and are perceived as crackpotted, not least because recent laws force them to telemarket for new members and wave signs on the side of the road. Courts continually come up with excuses why various workers' ("charge nurses," teaching assistants) interests align with their bosses' and therefore don't have rights to organize.

Let's examine this postmodern paradigm through the lens of the law firm associate/partner relationship. Young lawyers are a rarer commodity than 1930's factory workers if only because an astronomical degree of socialization is required of us, but most of us are still interchangeable. On the other hand law firm partners, like tycoons, hold every card imaginable. They're highly skilled, have near-exclusive access to clients, and are rich.

Yet working for them is about joining a team. Law firms are obviously on our side because they buy us alcohol. During 2L summer, enthusiam is more important than work product.

Maybe other people like to feel that they are on the side of their employer. These young lawyers' interests include not just getting rich but feeling loved. The intervention of the NLRB would cheapen this romantic relationship. So they decline to have rights.

But my only interest is not going broke! I think I'd be a lot happier to grind out [whatever it is associates do] if I could have some attitude about it. Contract says I have to work 80 hours a week? Fine. But try to make me work 81 and I WILL DESTROY YOU!