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Changing The Rules Of The Game: Pension Plan Terminations And Early Retirement Benefits, Dana M. Muir
Changing The Rules Of The Game: Pension Plan Terminations And Early Retirement Benefits, Dana M. Muir
Michigan Law Review
This Note examines whether early retirement benefits are included among the liabilities that an employer must satisfy before that employer can receive a reversion of excess assets. Part I reviews the background of plan terminations and how they affect early retirement benefits. It also discusses the general structure of ERISA. Part II examines the controversy surrounding whether ERISA's definition of "accrued benefits" includes early retirement benefits. ERISA requires that employees receive all of their accrued benefits before the employers receive any reversions. However, the circuits have disagreed as to whether early retirement benefits are accrued benefits and, therefore, covered by …
At-Will Employment: An Overview, Theodore J. St. Antoine
At-Will Employment: An Overview, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
The most dramatic development of the last decade has been the rapid judicial expansion of modifications in at-will employment doctrine.
Labor Law's Alter Ego Doctrine: The Role Of Employer Motive In Corporate Transformations, Gary Alan Macdonald
Labor Law's Alter Ego Doctrine: The Role Of Employer Motive In Corporate Transformations, Gary Alan Macdonald
Michigan Law Review
This Note examines the differing judicial approaches for reviewing NLRB alter ego findings, and concludes that a fundamental problem with all of the current approaches is the unwarranted consideration of motive in varying degrees. This Note proposes a modified "reasonably foreseeable benefit" standard which does not depend in any degree on the employer's motive for changing its corporate form. Part I discusses the origin and evolution of the alter ego doctrine, including its genesis in Southport Petroleum, the well-settled Crawford Door factors, and the related "successorship" doctrine. Part II analyzes the conflict among the federal courts of appeals over …
Prevention Of Antiunion Discrimination In The United States, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Prevention Of Antiunion Discrimination In The United States, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Nearly all rank-and-file employees in private businesses of any substantial size in the United States are protected by federal law against antiunion discrimination. The Railway Labor Act applies to the railroad and airline industries. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) applies to all other businesses whose operations "affect [interstate] commerce" in almost any way. Supervisory and managerial personnel, domestic servants, and agricultural workers are excluded from this federal scheme. Separate federal law covers the employees of the federal government. About thirty of the fifty states have statutes ensuring the right to organize on the part of some or most of …
Nonmajority Bargaining Orders: The Only Effective Remedy For Pervasive Employer Unfair Labor Practices During Union Organizing Campaigns, David S. Shillman
Nonmajority Bargaining Orders: The Only Effective Remedy For Pervasive Employer Unfair Labor Practices During Union Organizing Campaigns, David S. Shillman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Current Board policy forbids issuing a bargaining order in this situation, where there is no objective evidence of majority support for a union, even though the bargaining ·order may be the only effective remedy for extreme employer unfair labor practices. The Board's refusal to issue nonmajority bargaining orders (NMBOs), grounded in its fear of imposing a union on unwilling employees, has left it impotent to remedy the most severe employer unfair labor practices. This Note examines arguments for and against the Board's use of NMBOs and concludes that NMBOs are within the scope of the Board's remedial powers and should …
Japanese-Style Worker Participation And United States Labor Law, William S. Rutchow
Japanese-Style Worker Participation And United States Labor Law, William S. Rutchow
Michigan Journal of International Law
This note will evaluate the current legal status of Japanese-style worker participation programs under the NLRA. First, it analyzes relevant sections of the NLRA and their interpretation by the Board and the courts. Second, the note describes various types of Japanese worker participation programs, and suggests how these programs can be legally implemented under current American labor law. Third, the note considers standards the Supreme Court may adopt to test the legality of worker participation programs in the future. Finally, this note recommends that the Supreme Court uphold those participation programs which are freely chosen by employees.
The Bfoq Defense In Adea Suits: The Scope Of "Duties Of The Job", Robert L. Fischman
The Bfoq Defense In Adea Suits: The Scope Of "Duties Of The Job", Robert L. Fischman
Michigan Law Review
This Note examines these three possible interpretations of which job characteristics a court must examine when determining the validity of a BFOQ defense to an ADEA suit and concludes that the Eighth Circuit's standard is correct. Because disputes over which interpretation is proper arise almost exclusively in cases involving public safety occupations, this Note discusses the standards for measuring that scope within the framework of the policy considerations associated with public safety. Part I of this Note discusses the three current standards used to determine the scope of the BFOQ defense. Part II illuminates the problems inherent in having three …
Employer Postcertification Polls To Determine Union Support, James D. Dasso
Employer Postcertification Polls To Determine Union Support, James D. Dasso
Michigan Law Review
This Note evaluates these competing standards in light of the two major policy objectives of the NLRA: industrial stability and employee free choice. It concludes that the courts of appeals properly apply a less stringent standard. Part I considers employer polling in the larger context of the general law of employer interrogation. This section concludes that the Board's standard for postcertification polling deviates significantly from the general law of employer interrogation as well as the more specific rules established for precertification polling. The remainder of this Note demonstrates that the Board's distinctions between pre- and postcertification polling do not justify …
Integrity And Circumspection: The Labor Law Vision Of Bernard D. Meltzer, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Integrity And Circumspection: The Labor Law Vision Of Bernard D. Meltzer, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Bernard Meltzer has testified under oath that he "rarely take[s] absolute positions." The record bears him out. While his colleagues among labor law scholars often strain to demonstrate that the labor relations statutes and even the Constitution support their hearts' desires, the typical Meltzer stance is one of cool detachment, pragmatic assessment, and cautious, balanced judgment. The "itch to do good," Meltzer has remarked wryly, "is a doubtful basis for jurisdiction" -or, he would likely add, for any other legal conclusion. In this brief commentary I propose to examine the Meltzer approach to four broad areas of labor law: (1) …
Pension Plan Terminations And Asset Reversions: Accommodating The Interests Of Employers And Employees, Carl A. Butler
Pension Plan Terminations And Asset Reversions: Accommodating The Interests Of Employers And Employees, Carl A. Butler
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note focuses on the problems that often arise for plan participants when an overfunded defined benefit plan is terminated and the employer recaptures excess assets. Part I explains the relative ease with which employers can terminate plans and receive excess assets under current pension law. Part II argues that pension law must be reformed because its shortcomings threaten American workers' retirement income security, it allows for sham terminations that remove assets from plans that are, in fact, ongoing, and it usually allows excess assets to go to employers rather than employees. Part III discusses two reforms proposed for plan …
Federal Regulation Of The Workplace In The Next Half Century, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Federal Regulation Of The Workplace In The Next Half Century, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Even the general circulation press, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times to Business Week, has taken to examining the current malaise of the labor movement and the increased emphasis upon ensuring the safety, health, and economic security of employees through direct governmental regulation rather than through collective bargaining. What accounts for this upsurge of scholarly and popular interest in labor relations and labor law? There are undoubtedly multiple causes but I should like to focus on a couple of reasons that seem preeminent to me.
Legal Barriers To Worker Participation In Management Decision Making, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Legal Barriers To Worker Participation In Management Decision Making, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Collective bargaining lies at the heart of the union-management relationship. It is the end and purpose of the whole effort to protect employees against reprisals when they form an organization to represent them in dealing with their employers. Collective bargaining is grounded in the belief that industrial strife will be checked, and the workers' lot bettered, if workers are given an effective voice in determining the conditions of their employment. My thesis is that federal law, even while placing the force of government behind collective bargaining, has so artificially confined its scope that the process has been seriously impeded from …
Alternatives To Seniority-Based Layoffs: Reconciling Teamsters, Weber, And The Goal Of Equal Employment Opportunity, Paul M. Hamburger
Alternatives To Seniority-Based Layoffs: Reconciling Teamsters, Weber, And The Goal Of Equal Employment Opportunity, Paul M. Hamburger
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note advocates the use of legal incentives for adopting nonpreferential alternatives to seniority-based layoffs. Part I analyzes the impact of bona fide seniority systems on recently hired minorities and women. Part II discusses existing legal incentives for unions and employers to seek alternatives to strict seniority layoffs and for courts to enjoin such layoffs, thereby forcing the parties to negotiate over alternatives. Finally, part III examines two kinds of potential alternatives: racially preferential alternatives, which are prohibited under Title VII, and nonpreferential options, which are permissible and should be used increasingly.
The Role Of Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine
The Role Of Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Book Chapters
In the early New Deal days, workers' placards in the coal fields proudly proclaimed, "President Roosevelt wants you to join the union." If not literally true, that boast was well within the bounds of poetic license. After the brief interval of federal laissez-faire treatment of labor relations ushered in by the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935 declared the policy of the United States to be one of "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining." Employers, but not unions, were forbidden to coerce or discriminate against employees because of their organizational activities. …
National Labor Policy: Reflections And Distortions Of Social Justice, Theodore J. St. Antoine
National Labor Policy: Reflections And Distortions Of Social Justice, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
The impulse behind much of American labor law is profoundly moral. The sufferings and indignities inflicted on working men, women, and even children as the industrial revolution enveloped the western world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led many thoughtful observers to focus their attention on what was commonly called the "social question." Certain issues have been treated almost as if they posed questions of good and evil, when all they actually presented were problems of finding a proper balance of power between labor and management. This article shall develop these themes in several specific contexts.
Affirmative Action: Hypocritical Euphemism Or Noble Mandate?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Affirmative Action: Hypocritical Euphemism Or Noble Mandate?, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was adopted in an atmosphere of monumental naivete. Congress apparently believed that equal employment opportunity could be achieved simply by forbidding employers or unions to "discriminate" on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," and expressly disavowed any intention to require "preferential treatment." Perhaps animated by the Supreme Court's stirring desegregation decisions of the 1950's, the proponents of civil rights legislation made "color-blindness" the rallying cry of the hour. Today we know better. The dreary statistics, so familiar to anyone who works in this field, tell the story. …
Labor Law--Bankruptcy--The Effect Of The Bankruptcy Of An Employer On The Employment Relationship And On Jurisdiction Over Labor Disputes Involving The Employer, Michigan Law Review
Labor Law--Bankruptcy--The Effect Of The Bankruptcy Of An Employer On The Employment Relationship And On Jurisdiction Over Labor Disputes Involving The Employer, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Litigation arising in connection with the recent bankruptcy of Turney Wood Products, Inc., has brought into issue the general problem of the operation of a bankrupt employer under the federal labor laws. The provisions of both the federal labor laws and the Bankruptcy Act are clear in purpose, but in areas of their interaction they have produced jurisdictional confusion. The situation presented to a single court by the cases arising from the Turney Wood Products bankruptcy provided an ideal vehicle to resolve much of that confusion; in fact, the parties involved viewed it as a test-case situation. But the resulting …
Judicial Valour And The Warren Court's Labor Decisions, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Judicial Valour And The Warren Court's Labor Decisions, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Lawyers who practice regularly before the Supreme Court are likely to prepare their arguments with a specific Justice in mind. The choice does not necessarily turn on who might be the swing vote in a given case. Often it is just a matter of which Justice can be relied upon, because of his particular interests and his insight, to search out the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing positions, and to see that all the hard questions are asked. In a labor case during the early years of the Warren Court, that would usually have meant Justice Frankfurter. Later on, …
A Touchstone For Labor Board Remedies, Theodore J. St. Antoine
A Touchstone For Labor Board Remedies, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Fashion dictates what lawyers argue about, and law professors write about, more than we may care to admit. In labor law, especially, the styles change with a rapidity that would impress a Paris couturier. During the past decade the spotlight has moved from union democracy to labor contract enforcement to the union organizing campaign. Today the "in" topic is National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) remedies. Yet if any subject deserves immunity from the vagaries of fashion, this is the one; for all rights acquire substance only insofar as they are backed by effective remedies. Coke said it long ago: "[W]ant …
Labor Organizations In Legislation, Jerome C. Knowlton
Labor Organizations In Legislation, Jerome C. Knowlton
Articles
During the first months of the current year, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down three decisions on important questions in labor legislation.1 The Employers' Liability Act was declared unconstitutional, but on grounds that may be avoided by subsequent legislation; the boycott was decided to be an unlawful conspiracy against interstate commerce, and in violation of the Anti-Trust Act and the congressional enactment providing criminal punishment for the discharge of an employee because of his membership in a labor organization was also held unconstitutional. These decisions have been unjustly spoken of by some, as unreasonably severe on labor …
Labor And Capital Before The Law, Thomas M. Cooley
Labor And Capital Before The Law, Thomas M. Cooley
Articles
The chief concern of every political society is the establishment of rights and of adequate securities for their protection. In America, it has been agreed that this shall be done by the people themselves; they shall make their own laws, and choose their own agents to administer them. But the obvious difficulty of doing this directly has been recognized, and the people, after formulating the charter of government, incorporating in it such principles as they deem fundamental, content themselves with delegating all powers of ordinary legislation to representatives. Notwithstanding this delegation, much direct legislation of a very effective and important …