Labor Law

Online
Essay
A Blueprint for Protecting U.S. Companies from Unfair Competition Fueled by Forced Labor
T. Markus Funk
Markus is a litigation and white collar partner at White & Case. A former federal prosecutor (Chicago) and conflict-deployed State Department lawyer (Kosovo), he set up the first supply chain compliance practice at an AmLaw100 law firm, taught law school classes on trafficking in supply chain compliance, and authored "From Baksheesh to Bribery: Understanding the Global Fight Against Corruption and Graft."
The Hon. Virginia M. Kendall
Judge Kendall is the Chief Judge for the Northern District of Illinois. She has taught law at institutions including Yale Law School and currently teaches a class on human trafficking, supply chain law, and public corruption at the University of Chicago School of Law. She has written extensively on the U.S. and transnational impact of bribery and corruption.

In today’s competitive global economy, U.S. companies upholding strict labor and human rights standards increasingly face unfair competition from foreign firms that exploit forced labor. In this Essay, we argue that this exploitation is not just a grave human rights crisis but also a serious market distortion that disadvantages ethical businesses in the United States and elsewhere.
This Essay outlines a strategic approach to confront this unfairly uneven playing field. Beyond simply deploying the existing legal tools, we propose a unified federal enforcement strategy and smarter trade agreements with enforceable labor standards. We also propose affirmative incentives, including procurement preferences and legal safe harbors, for companies that invest in ethical sourcing. The final component to the integrated strategy we propose is greater investment in traceability technologies and public-private partnerships to identify and root out forced labor deep within supply chains. Ultimately, we outline a forward-looking blueprint to ensure fair and competitive markets for U.S. businesses, ones that reward integrity and drive a global race to the top in labor practices. Economic competitiveness and human dignity, we argue, must be pursued together, not treated as competing priorities.

Online
Essay
The Future of Forced Labor: Enforcing the UFLPA in the Wake of Ninestar Corp. v. United States
Joshua Feldman
Joshua Feldman is a J.D. candidate at The University of Chicago Law School, Class of 2026.

He thanks Elizabeth Welsh, Liam Haffey, and the entire University of Chicago Law Review Online team for their support and feedback.

This Case Note summarizes the primary holdings surrounding Ninestar Corp, focusing on the resulting predicament for the FLETF. By revealing more information to regulated firms about its Entity List determination procedures, the FLETF could force firms to seek administrative remedy before they could access the courts, thereby retaining greater control over UFLPA enforcement; yet, in doing so, it may enable firms to circumvent Entity List designation. This Case Note ultimately concludes that forced labor enforcement regime is best served by greater transparency in the Entity List designation process.

2
Article
76.2
Passive Discrimination: When Does It Make Sense to Pay Too Little?
Jonah Gelbach
Associate Professor of Economics, University of Arizona
Jonathan Klick
Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Lesley Wexler
Assistant Professor of Law, Florida State University College of Law

Many thanks to Curtis Bridgeman, Fred Gedicks, Steve Gey, Mike Zimmer, participants at the 2008 Midwest Law and Economics Association annual meeting, and participants in the Second Annual Labor and Employment Law Colloquium for comments.