Janice Fine
Biographic Data
| ID | 275600 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Janice Fine |
| GIVEN NAMES | Janice |
| FAMILY NAME | Fine |
| SIGNATURE | FINE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5419-4347 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 205 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Powers and Practices in Labor Standards Enforcement
Wage theft remains a pervasive problem internationally and within the United States. In response, worker advocates have sought stronger laws to deter violations and promote compliance. Yet formal authority alone may be insufficient; labor departments often fail to use the full extent of their legal authority to conduct vigorous enforcement. This raises two empirical questions: to what extent do agencies deploy available enforcement tools, and wit…
Threats to Legitimacy in Local Employment Law Enforcement Regimes Among Immigrant and Racially Marginalized Small Business Owners
U.S. municipal labor enforcement agencies find they are often inundated with complaints from small, immigrant‐ or minority‐owned firms. This undermines these agencies' efforts to engage in strategic enforcement and raises equity concerns, threatening the legitimacy of the labor standards enforcement regime among some businesses. This paper draws on interviews with small business owners who participated in a pilot study that provided employment la…
Governing for Worker Power
An Overview of US Workers' Current Organizing Efforts and Collective Actions
American workers are currently engaged in an upsurge in collective actions aimed at achieving a stronger voice and representation at work; this desire for increased voice at work is also evident in survey data. However, union organizing drives in the United States typically meet with strong employer resistance, and such resistance reduces the likelihood that the organizing effort will be successful. In addition to unions, a broad array of other e…
Introduction to a Special Issue on the New Labor Federalism
The articles in this volume grew out of a 2018 conference organized by the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and Cornell University's ILR School to address questions regarding labor regulation at lower levels of government. During the extended period that federal reform has been blocked, enormous activity has taken place at the state and local levels in terms of both the passage of new employment laws and regulations as well as the…
Segmentation and the Role of Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigration Reform
Segmentation and the Role of Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigration Reform
Despite the fact that many low-wage, violation-ridden industries are disproportionately occupied by immigrants, labor standards and immigration reform have largely been treated as separate pieces of an otherwise interrelated puzzle. Not only is this view misguided, but this paper argues that strengthening labor standards enforcement would ensure that standards are upheld for all workers, immigrant and others. In addition, labor standards enforcem…
Grassroots Citizenship at Multiple Scales
Co‐enforcing Labor standards
Labor inspection is a central response to the tremendous gap between formal regulations and outcomes for workers throughout the world. Scholarly and policy debates on labor regulation have focused on improving the targeting of enforcement, changing strategies of street‐level agents, and creating private alternatives to state regulation. This paper argues that these proposals, while important, fail to systematically incorporate the potential contr…
Enforcing Labor Standards in Partnership with Civil Society
Over the last decade, cities, counties, and states across the United States have enacted higher minimum wages, paid sick leave and family leave, domestic worker protections, wage theft laws, 'Ban the Box' removal of questions about conviction history from job applications, and fair scheduling laws. Nevertheless, vulnerable workers still do not trust government to come forward and report labor law violations. The article argues that while increasi…
A Discussion of Sanford Schram’s The Return of Ordinary Capitalism
Sanford Schram’s The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy (Oxford University Press, 2015) is an ambitious effort to link together three important political realities of our time: the rise of new forms of neoliberal governance, the associated rise of new forms of social and economic insecurity, and the recent development of organized forms of political resistance symbolized by the figure of “Occupy.” The argument is rele…
Celebrating the Enduring Contribution of Birds of Passage
Strengthening Labor Standards Compliance through Co-production of Enforcement
When the Rubber Hits the High Road
This article is an exploration of challenges faced by building and construction trade unions as they seek to enter the green jobs sector through the lens of the Eastern Region of the Laborers Union. This article is also motivated by an interest in extending the literature on community unionism by asking how and in what ways specifically coalition participation impacts labor’s ability to organize and in this case enter the green jobs sector succes…
Worker Centers
Injustice at Work
Immigration and the Transformation of American Unionism
Does immigration hamper union organizing in the United States? The prevailing literature strongly suggests that it does and for two reasons: first, immigrants increase the labor pool and diminish union influence over the labor market. And second, immigrants may be harder to organize than native workers. In this dominant view, unions are well served to restrict immigration and have always done so. But how, then, to explain the fact that American l…
Explaining Union Behavior in American Politics
Strengthening Labor Standards Enforcement through Partnerships with Workers' Organizations
Structures of employment in low-wage industries, a diminished wage and hour inspectorate, and an unworkable immigration regime have combined to create an environment where violations of basic workplace laws are everyday occurrences. This article identifies four 'logics' of detection and enforcement, arguing that there is a mismatch between the enforcement strategies of most federal and state labor inspectorates and the industries in which noncomp…
A Movement Wrestling
This article examines the American labor movement's struggles since the nineteenth century over how to respond to mass immigration. Labor's struggles have turned on whether it views new waves fundamentally as a threat, which elicits a strategy of restriction, or an opportunity, which elicits a strategy of solidarity. It also captures the advantages of a longue-duree approach for understanding the fraught and evolving relationship between American…
Building a Future Together
Why have not worker centers and building trades unions formed alliances to advance their common interests? Why do many construction unionists perceive worker centers as threats? Why do worker centers regard building trades' locals with suspicion? What can be done to promote communication and collaboration between worker centers and labor unions in the construction industry? This article examines the characteristics of both building trades unions …
Why Labor Needs a Plan B
Community Unions and the Revival of the American Labor Movement
Today's low-wage workforce is mostly ignored by the national political parties and largely untouched by organized labor. Over the last twenty years, 'community unions' have emerged to try to fill the void. They are modest-sized community-based organizations of low-wage workers that, through a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing, focus on issues of work and wages. Community unions have so far had greater success at raising wages and i…
Low-Wage Workers, Faith-Based Organizing, Worker Centers and 'One Big Movement' in Dan Clawson's The Next Upsurge
Community Unions and the Revival of the American Labor Movement
Today's low-wage workforce is mostly ignored by the national political parties and largely untouched by organized labor. Over the last twenty years, 'community unions' have emerged to try to fill the void. They are modest-sized community-based organizations of low-wage workers that, through a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing, focus on issues of work and wages. Community unions have so far had greater success at raising wages and i…
Strengthening Labor Standards Enforcement through Partnerships with Workers' Organizations
Structures of employment in low-wage industries, a diminished wage and hour inspectorate, and an unworkable immigration regime have combined to create an environment where violations of basic workplace laws are everyday occurrences. This article identifies four 'logics' of detection and enforcement, arguing that there is a mismatch between the enforcement strategies of most federal and state labor inspectorates and the industries in which noncomp…
Enforcing Labor Standards in Partnership with Civil Society
Over the last decade, cities, counties, and states across the United States have enacted higher minimum wages, paid sick leave and family leave, domestic worker protections, wage theft laws, 'Ban the Box' removal of questions about conviction history from job applications, and fair scheduling laws. Nevertheless, vulnerable workers still do not trust government to come forward and report labor law violations. The article argues that while increasi…
A Movement Wrestling
This article examines the American labor movement's struggles since the nineteenth century over how to respond to mass immigration. Labor's struggles have turned on whether it views new waves fundamentally as a threat, which elicits a strategy of restriction, or an opportunity, which elicits a strategy of solidarity. It also captures the advantages of a longue-duree approach for understanding the fraught and evolving relationship between American…
Co‐enforcing Labor standards
Labor inspection is a central response to the tremendous gap between formal regulations and outcomes for workers throughout the world. Scholarly and policy debates on labor regulation have focused on improving the targeting of enforcement, changing strategies of street‐level agents, and creating private alternatives to state regulation. This paper argues that these proposals, while important, fail to systematically incorporate the potential contr…
An Overview of US Workers' Current Organizing Efforts and Collective Actions
American workers are currently engaged in an upsurge in collective actions aimed at achieving a stronger voice and representation at work; this desire for increased voice at work is also evident in survey data. However, union organizing drives in the United States typically meet with strong employer resistance, and such resistance reduces the likelihood that the organizing effort will be successful. In addition to unions, a broad array of other e…
Worker Centers
Grassroots Citizenship at Multiple Scales
Segmentation and the Role of Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigration Reform
Despite the fact that many low-wage, violation-ridden industries are disproportionately occupied by immigrants, labor standards and immigration reform have largely been treated as separate pieces of an otherwise interrelated puzzle. Not only is this view misguided, but this paper argues that strengthening labor standards enforcement would ensure that standards are upheld for all workers, immigrant and others. In addition, labor standards enforcem…
Building a Future Together
Why have not worker centers and building trades unions formed alliances to advance their common interests? Why do many construction unionists perceive worker centers as threats? Why do worker centers regard building trades' locals with suspicion? What can be done to promote communication and collaboration between worker centers and labor unions in the construction industry? This article examines the characteristics of both building trades unions …
Immigration and the Transformation of American Unionism
Does immigration hamper union organizing in the United States? The prevailing literature strongly suggests that it does and for two reasons: first, immigrants increase the labor pool and diminish union influence over the labor market. And second, immigrants may be harder to organize than native workers. In this dominant view, unions are well served to restrict immigration and have always done so. But how, then, to explain the fact that American l…
Celebrating the Enduring Contribution of Birds of Passage
Introduction to a Special Issue on the New Labor Federalism
The articles in this volume grew out of a 2018 conference organized by the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and Cornell University's ILR School to address questions regarding labor regulation at lower levels of government. During the extended period that federal reform has been blocked, enormous activity has taken place at the state and local levels in terms of both the passage of new employment laws and regulations as well as the…
A Discussion of Sanford Schram’s The Return of Ordinary Capitalism
Sanford Schram’s The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy (Oxford University Press, 2015) is an ambitious effort to link together three important political realities of our time: the rise of new forms of neoliberal governance, the associated rise of new forms of social and economic insecurity, and the recent development of organized forms of political resistance symbolized by the figure of “Occupy.” The argument is rele…
When the Rubber Hits the High Road
This article is an exploration of challenges faced by building and construction trade unions as they seek to enter the green jobs sector through the lens of the Eastern Region of the Laborers Union. This article is also motivated by an interest in extending the literature on community unionism by asking how and in what ways specifically coalition participation impacts labor’s ability to organize and in this case enter the green jobs sector succes…
Community Unions and the Revival of the American Labor Movement
Today's low-wage workforce is mostly ignored by the national political parties and largely untouched by organized labor. Over the last twenty years, 'community unions' have emerged to try to fill the void. They are modest-sized community-based organizations of low-wage workers that, through a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing, focus on issues of work and wages. Community unions have so far had greater success at raising wages and i…
Low-Wage Workers, Faith-Based Organizing, Worker Centers and 'One Big Movement' in Dan Clawson's The Next Upsurge
Why Labor Needs a Plan B
Building a Future Together
Why have not worker centers and building trades unions formed alliances to advance their common interests? Why do many construction unionists perceive worker centers as threats? Why do worker centers regard building trades' locals with suspicion? What can be done to promote communication and collaboration between worker centers and labor unions in the construction industry? This article examines the characteristics of both building trades unions …
A Movement Wrestling
This article examines the American labor movement's struggles since the nineteenth century over how to respond to mass immigration. Labor's struggles have turned on whether it views new waves fundamentally as a threat, which elicits a strategy of restriction, or an opportunity, which elicits a strategy of solidarity. It also captures the advantages of a longue-duree approach for understanding the fraught and evolving relationship between American…
Immigration and the Transformation of American Unionism
Does immigration hamper union organizing in the United States? The prevailing literature strongly suggests that it does and for two reasons: first, immigrants increase the labor pool and diminish union influence over the labor market. And second, immigrants may be harder to organize than native workers. In this dominant view, unions are well served to restrict immigration and have always done so. But how, then, to explain the fact that American l…
Explaining Union Behavior in American Politics
Strengthening Labor Standards Enforcement through Partnerships with Workers' Organizations
Structures of employment in low-wage industries, a diminished wage and hour inspectorate, and an unworkable immigration regime have combined to create an environment where violations of basic workplace laws are everyday occurrences. This article identifies four 'logics' of detection and enforcement, arguing that there is a mismatch between the enforcement strategies of most federal and state labor inspectorates and the industries in which noncomp…
When the Rubber Hits the High Road
This article is an exploration of challenges faced by building and construction trade unions as they seek to enter the green jobs sector through the lens of the Eastern Region of the Laborers Union. This article is also motivated by an interest in extending the literature on community unionism by asking how and in what ways specifically coalition participation impacts labor’s ability to organize and in this case enter the green jobs sector succes…
Worker Centers
Injustice at Work
Strengthening Labor Standards Compliance through Co-production of Enforcement
A Discussion of Sanford Schram’s The Return of Ordinary Capitalism
Sanford Schram’s The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy (Oxford University Press, 2015) is an ambitious effort to link together three important political realities of our time: the rise of new forms of neoliberal governance, the associated rise of new forms of social and economic insecurity, and the recent development of organized forms of political resistance symbolized by the figure of “Occupy.” The argument is rele…
Celebrating the Enduring Contribution of Birds of Passage
Segmentation and the Role of Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigration Reform
Segmentation and the Role of Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigration Reform
Despite the fact that many low-wage, violation-ridden industries are disproportionately occupied by immigrants, labor standards and immigration reform have largely been treated as separate pieces of an otherwise interrelated puzzle. Not only is this view misguided, but this paper argues that strengthening labor standards enforcement would ensure that standards are upheld for all workers, immigrant and others. In addition, labor standards enforcem…
Grassroots Citizenship at Multiple Scales
Co‐enforcing Labor standards
Labor inspection is a central response to the tremendous gap between formal regulations and outcomes for workers throughout the world. Scholarly and policy debates on labor regulation have focused on improving the targeting of enforcement, changing strategies of street‐level agents, and creating private alternatives to state regulation. This paper argues that these proposals, while important, fail to systematically incorporate the potential contr…
Enforcing Labor Standards in Partnership with Civil Society
Over the last decade, cities, counties, and states across the United States have enacted higher minimum wages, paid sick leave and family leave, domestic worker protections, wage theft laws, 'Ban the Box' removal of questions about conviction history from job applications, and fair scheduling laws. Nevertheless, vulnerable workers still do not trust government to come forward and report labor law violations. The article argues that while increasi…
Introduction to a Special Issue on the New Labor Federalism
The articles in this volume grew out of a 2018 conference organized by the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and Cornell University's ILR School to address questions regarding labor regulation at lower levels of government. During the extended period that federal reform has been blocked, enormous activity has taken place at the state and local levels in terms of both the passage of new employment laws and regulations as well as the…
An Overview of US Workers' Current Organizing Efforts and Collective Actions
American workers are currently engaged in an upsurge in collective actions aimed at achieving a stronger voice and representation at work; this desire for increased voice at work is also evident in survey data. However, union organizing drives in the United States typically meet with strong employer resistance, and such resistance reduces the likelihood that the organizing effort will be successful. In addition to unions, a broad array of other e…
Governing for Worker Power
Threats to Legitimacy in Local Employment Law Enforcement Regimes Among Immigrant and Racially Marginalized Small Business Owners
U.S. municipal labor enforcement agencies find they are often inundated with complaints from small, immigrant‐ or minority‐owned firms. This undermines these agencies' efforts to engage in strategic enforcement and raises equity concerns, threatening the legitimacy of the labor standards enforcement regime among some businesses. This paper draws on interviews with small business owners who participated in a pilot study that provided employment la…
Powers and Practices in Labor Standards Enforcement
Wage theft remains a pervasive problem internationally and within the United States. In response, worker advocates have sought stronger laws to deter violations and promote compliance. Yet formal authority alone may be insufficient; labor departments often fail to use the full extent of their legal authority to conduct vigorous enforcement. This raises two empirical questions: to what extent do agencies deploy available enforcement tools, and wit…
Political science (22 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (20 works) · Law (17 works) · Economics (16 works) · Business (12 works) · Labour economics (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Enforcement (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (9 works)