Works in Progress Group 16: Workers

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Session Type: Works-in-Progress

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Union Square 13

Floor: 4th Floor

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Group #16: Workers
Digital Servitude
Julie Dahlstrom, Boston University School of Law

This article addresses the growing phenomenon of digital servitude--forced labor practices facilitated by the internet and digital technology. As human trafficking has moved online, much has been written about technology-facilitated human trafficking. However, the majority has focused on online sex trafficking—the recruitment and exploitation of survivors on commercial sex websites. Little attention has been paid to online labor trafficking, despite ample research on work, technology, and digital surveillance.

This article fills this gap by examining how digital servitude manifests in the United States and internationally. Moreover, it explores how online platforms play an important, yet underrecognized role, as platforms fail to remove content related to digital servitude and facilitate asymmetries in information that allow forced labor to thrive. Ultimately, this article argues that third party civil trafficking statutes provide an important tool to hold companies accountable. However, it examines why relatively few lawsuits have moved forward since Congress authorized third party trafficking lawsuits in 2008, despite a plethora of third party civil litigation involving the online sex trafficking context. It explores emergent legal and practical challenges, including extraterritoriality and the intent requirement, and ultimately argues that third party civil liability provides an important opportunity to disrupt online labor trafficking and provide compensation to survivors of digital servitude.
Moderator and Discussant: Walter Edward Afield, Georgia State University College of Law

Procedural Due Process Failures in Times of Crisis: Unemployment Benefits and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Drake Hagner, George Washington University School of Law
For decades, federal courts have affirmed that jobless workers have a property interest in state-administered unemployment benefits, giving rise to procedural due process protections under the 5th and 14th amendments. These due process rights, including adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to appeal adverse benefit determinations, are further enshrined in the Social Security Act and many states’ laws. Yet, in times of crisis, the state agencies responsible for administering benefits are incentivized to adopt claims handling practices at odd with these clear rights.
This article examines the widespread state termination of CARES Act-established pandemic unemployment benefits without adequate notice as required by law. While long-lines outside state unemployment offices and lengthy delays in initial claims processing received widespread public attention, equally troubling was a pattern of state action terminating weekly unemployment benefits without adequate notice. In some states, jobless workers were effectively denied the right to appeal due to an inability to produce written notice, further violating their right to be heard. A cadre of workers’ rights advocates filed claims in Virginia, Maryland, and other states challenging these procedural due process protections.
The failure of state agencies to administer benefits within the bounds of procedural due process protections has implications for other times of crisis, including the unwinding of Medicaid and other public benefits protections from the federal public health emergency ending in April 2023.