Mark Erlich

Mark Erlich is a Wertheim Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center for Labor & a Just Economy. He retired as Executive Secretary-Treasurer (EST) of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, a 20,000 member organization, in March 2017. A member of Carpenters Local 40 since 1975, he worked at the craft as an apprentice, journeyman, foreman, and superintendent. While EST, Erlich chaired the New England Carpenters Benefits Funds and the New England Carpenters Training Fund. He was a Vice-President of the Mass AFL-CIO and Mass Building Trades. He served as a member on the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals and the Federal Reserve Advisory Council.

In addition to his career in the trades and the labor movement, Erlich has written and lectured extensively on labor issues. He is the author of three books, With Our Hands: The Story of Carpenters in Massachusetts (1986) and Labor at the Ballot Box (1990), both published by Temple University Press, and The Way We Build (2023) published by the University of Illinois Press. He has written dozens of essays, articles, and op-eds on contemporary union issues and labor history in academic publications and popular journals and newspapers.