Sharon Block is an American attorney, government official, labor policy advisor and law professor who served during the Biden administration as the Associate Administrator delegated the duties of the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from January 20, 2021, to February 1, 2022. During the Obama administration, Block served on the National Labor Relations Board and in the United States Department of Labor and the White House. She currently serves as a professor of practice and the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.
From 2006 to 2009, Block was senior counsel to the Senate HELP Committee under Senator Ted Kennedy. She then served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Affairs in the United States Department of Labor from 2009 to 2011.
In 2011, Block was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Labor Relations Board.[4] She was sworn in as a board member on January 9, 2012, following a recess appointment by the President.[5] However, in 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled her appointment as invalid.[6] Block left the board after serving for 18 months in August 2013.[6][7]
Block returned to the United States Department of Labor and served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and senior counselor to then United States Secretary of LaborTom Perez from 2013 to 2017.[8]
In 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the ruling that President Barack Obama's 2012 recess appointments exceeded his authority and were thus invalid.[9] Obama tapped Block for a reappointment on the National Labor Relations Board, but withdrew her nomination later that year when her nomination was opposed by Senate Republicans.[10][11]
In 2016, Block was hired by Harvard Law School as Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program and joined the program in January 2017. In 2020, Block and fellow Harvard Law Professor Benjamin I. Sachs launched the Clean Slate for Worker Power, an initiative of the school's Labor and Worklife Program that seeks to fundamentally reimagine U.S. labor law in ways to empower workers and enhance industrial democracy.[12] In its first report, the project engaged over 70 activists, union leaders, workers, labor law professors, and others in politics and academia to generate ideas and craft a comprehensive policy agenda. Among other major reforms, Clean Slate advocates for minority unionism, sectoral bargaining, mandatory card-check recognition, stronger penalties for labor law violators, independent labor courts, and a more limited doctrine of federal labor law preemption.[13] In its second report, the project focused on ways to adapt labor and employment laws in response to workplace challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.[14] Clean Slate's policy recommendations have garnered considerable attention in both academic and political circles.[15][16] Writing for The Guardian, American labor journalist Steven Greenhouse argued that Clean Slate's proposals offer “the most effective strategy to combat America’s economic inequality and corporations’ sway over the economy and politics.”[17]
Block departed her role in the OIRA on February 1, 2022. On March 15, 2022, Harvard Law School announced that Block would return to the university as a professor of practice and executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program.[24]
^Block, Sharon; Harris, Benjamin H. (2021). Inequality and the Labor Market: The Case for Greater Competition. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN9780815738800.
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