Northern Illinois University
College of Law

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Michael M. Oswalt joined the NIU College of Law in 2013 and teaches torts, labor law, employment law, and seminars on emerging issues in employment discrimination and workplace organizing.

Michael’s research focuses on the relationship between law and activism, particularly how legal regimes impact collective action at work and in communities. Since coming to NIU, Michael’s full-length articles have appeared in the California Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the UC Davis Law Review, the UC Irvine Law Review, the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, and Law and Contemporary Problems. He is a co-author on two labor law casebooks. In 2019, Michael co-convened a symposium at IIT Chicago-Kent School of Law on new and emerging forms of worker organizing. His most recent work, Liminal Labor Law, will be published by the California Law Review in 2022.

Michael graduated from Haverford College and has degrees in law and theology from Duke University. At Duke, he was a member of the Duke Law Journal and served as notes editor for the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy. After law school he clerked on the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals for Judge, now Justice, Sonia Sotomayor. Michael previously worked for the Service Employees International Union where he provided counsel to a variety of low wage worker campaigns.

You can follow Michael on Twitter @MichaelMOswalt.

News

| SSRN Author Page | HeinOnline Author Profile |

Books and Book Chapters

• Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace (Dau-Schmidt, Corrada, Cameron, Rosado Marzán, Oswalt, Gely eds., West Academic Publishing 4th ed., forthcoming 2022).
• The Power of Place, in The Cambridge Handbook of U.S. Labor Law for the Twenty-First Century (Richard Bales & Charlotte Garden, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2019). (Available in SSRN)

Articles

Law Reviews

• Liminal Labor Law, 110 Cal. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2022). (Available in SSRN).
• Short Strikes, 95 Chicago-Kent L. Rev. 67 (2020). (Available in SSRN).
• Alt-Bargaining, 82 L. & Contemp. Probs. 89 (2019).
• The Content of Coercion, 52 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1585 (2019).
  • Reviewed in JOTWELL
• Organizing the State: The “New Labor Law” Seen From the Bottom-Up, 39 Berkeley J. of Emp. & Lab. L. 415 (2018) (with César Rosado-Marzán).
  The Right to Improvise in Low Wage Work, 38 Cardozo L. Rev. 959 (2017).
  
  • Reviewed in JOTWELL
• Law and the Questions and Answers of Workplace Mobilization, 40 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change Harbinger 129 (2016). (Available in SSRN)
• Improvisational Unionism, 104 Cal. L. Rev. 597 (2016).
  • Reviewed in JOTWELL
• Automatic Elections, 4 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 801 (2014).
• Steeple Solidarity: Mainline Church Renewal and the Union Corporate Campaign, 50 J. Cath. Legal Stud. 227 (2011). (Available in SSRN)
• Preemption and Civic Democracy in the Battle Over Wal-Mart, 92 Minn. L. Rev. 1502 (2008) (with Catherine Fisk). (Available in SSRN)
• The Grand Bargain: Revitalizing Labor Through NLRA Reform and Radical Workplace Relations, 57 Duke L.J. 691 (2007). (Available in SSRN)

Other Writing

• The Doomed Constitutional Case Against Exclusive Representation, ACS Issue Brief (June 14, 2021).
• Opinion, Protesting for Social Justice at Work, Rockford Register Star (Sept. 19, 2020).
• Commentary, Does Scabby the Rat cause fear—or is the NLRB inflating the balloon’s power?, Chi. Trib. (Aug. 16, 2019).
• Searching for the “New Labor Law,” The Regulatory Review (May 8, 2018) (with César Rosado-Marzán). 
• When "Restructuring" Weakens Enforcement, OnLabor (April 10, 2018) (with César Rosado-Marzán).
• A Bad McSettlement, OnLabor (Jan. 29, 2018).
• My Paternity Leave Was Not Gratuitous, HuffPost (June 14, 2017).
• My View: Trump's Big Mistake at the Department of Labor, Rockford Register Star (Jan. 14, 2017).
• Improvisation at Work: A Labor Day Reflection, HuffPost (Sept. 5, 2016).
• Bust Out without Breaking Up, 25 New Labor F. 21 (Winter 2016).
• When Courts Stop Strikes Before They Start: Why Workers and the Public Lose, HuffPost (Feb. 13, 2014).
• Labor's New Strike-First Strategy, Chi. Sun-Times (Sep. 10, 2013).