Digital Commons Network^™

The Case In Favor Of Waivable Employee Rights: A Contrarian View, William Corbett

Journal Articles

Most employee rights in U.S. labor and employment law are nonwaivable. Waivable employee rights exist most prominently in the law regarding noncompetes and mandatory arbitration agreements. In recent years, there has been substantial backlash against perceived employer confiscation of workers’ rights in these two areas. On January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission issued a proposed rule prohibiting employers from entering into noncompete agreements with workers. In 2022, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021. Clearly, the federal government has become concerned with employers’ opportunistic confiscation of employees’ waivable rights and …

Mapping Racial Capitalism: Implications For Law, Carmen G. Gonzalez, Athena D. Mutua

Journal Articles

The theory of racial capitalism offers insights into the relationship between class and race, providing both a structural and a historical account of the ways in which the two are linked in the global economy. Law plays an important role in this. This article sketches what we believe are two key structural features of racial capitalism: profit-making and race-making for the purpose of accumulating wealth and power. We understand profit-making as the extraction of surplus value or profits through processes of exploitation, expropriation, and expulsion, which are grounded in a politics of race-making. We understand race-making as including racial stratification, …

Clear Statement Rules And The Integrity Of Labor Arbitration, Stephen F. Ross, Roy Eisenhardt

Journal Articles

Under the common law, employment contracts are submitted to civil courts to resolve disputes over interpretation, breach, and remedies. As an alternative, parties in labor contexts can agree to resolution by an impartial arbitrator, whose decision is reviewed deferentially by judges. Where employees are subject to rules of a private association, they are often contractually obligated to submit their claims to an internal association officer or committee; the common law provides for judicial review more limited than a civil contract but more searching than is the case for an impartial labor arbitrator. Recently, the National Football League and its players …

Wage-Setting Institutions And Corporate Governance, Matthew Dimick, Neel Rao

Journal Articles

Why do corporate governance law and practice differ across countries? This paper explains how wage-setting institutions influence ownership structures and investor protection laws. In particular, we identify a nonmonotonic relationship between the level of centralization in wage-bargaining institutions and the level of ownership concentration and investor protection laws. As wage setting becomes more centralized, ownership concentration within firms at first becomes more, and then less, concentrated. In addition, the socially optimal level of investor protection laws is decreasing in ownership concentration. Thus, as wage-setting institutions become more centralized, investor protection laws become less and then more protective. This explanation is …

Corporate Social Responsibility For Enforcement Of Labor Rights: Are There More Effective Alternatives?, Barbara Fick

Journal Articles

This article addresses the concept of corporate social responsibility (hereinafter CSR) as it relates to labor rights. It considers the following issues: is the CSR model, as evidenced by the adoption of corporate codes of conduct, effective in protecting labor rights?; and is this model the best way to protect labor rights? These issues are examined from two perspectives: practical and philosophical. Lastly, some alternative enforcement mechanisms are considered and their respective advantages and disadvantages for purposes of ensuring labor rights are discussed.

Maternal And Neonatal Outcomes By Labor Onset Type And Gestational Age, Jennifer L Bailit, Kimberly D Gregory, Uma M Reddy, Victor H Gonzalez-Quintero, Judith U Hibbard, Mildred M Ramirez, D Ware Branch, Ronald Burkman, Shoshana Haberman, Christos G Hatjis, Matthew K Hoffman, Michelle Kominiarek, Helain J Landy, Lee A Learman, James Troendle, Paul Van Veldhuisen, Isabelle Wilkins, Liping Sun, Jun Zhang

Journal Articles

OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine maternal and neonatal outcomes by labor onset type and gestational age.

STUDY DESIGN: We used electronic medical records data from 10 US institutions in the Consortium on Safe Labor on 115,528 deliveries from 2002 through 2008. Deliveries were divided by labor onset type (spontaneous, elective induction, indicated induction, unlabored cesarean). Neonatal and maternal outcomes were calculated by labor onset type and gestational age.

RESULTS: Neonatal intensive care unit admissions and sepsis improved with each week of gestational age until 39 weeks (P < .001). After adjusting for complications, elective induction of labor was associated with a lower risk of ventilator use (odds ratio [OR], 0.38; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.28-0.53), sepsis (OR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.26-0.49), and neonatal intensive care unit admissions (OR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.48-0.57) compared to spontaneous labor. The relative risk of hysterectomy at term was 3.21 (95% CI, 1.08-9.54) with elective induction, 1.16 (95% CI, 0.24-5.58) with indicated induction, and 6.57 (95% CI, 1.78-24.30) with cesarean without labor compared to spontaneous labor.

CONCLUSION: Some neonatal outcomes improved until 39 weeks. Babies born with elective induction …

Outsourcing Sacrifice: The Labor Of Private Military Contractors, Mateo Taussig-Rubbo

Journal Articles

Numerous scandals arising from the United States government’s increased use of armed private military contractors have drawn attention to the contractors’ legally ill-defined position. But the complexity of the contractors’ relation to various bodies of law and doctrine — including military law, international law, state tort law, employment law, and sovereign immunity — is not the only salient issue. The contractors are also awkwardly positioned in relation to the traditional understanding of sacrifice, which has structured Americans’ imaginings about those who kill and are killed on behalf of the nation. This Article examines the contractors’ relation to the tradition of …

Mr. Dooley And Mr. Gallup: Public Opinion And Constitutional Change In The 1930s, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

Scholars interested in the development of political and constitutional culture during the 1930s sometimes draw inferences about popular preferences on various issues of social and economic policy from the results of presidential and congressional elections. A review of contemporary public opinion polls taken by George Gallup for the American Institute of Public Opinion and by Elmo Roper for the Fortune Magazine survey offers a more granular understanding of popular views on the public policy issues of the day. This article canvasses all of the public opinion polls taken by Gallup and Roper between 1935, when they began publishing their results, …

Survey Of Recent Developments In Indiana Law: Labor And Employment Law, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article examines developments in labor and employment law occuring shortly before its publicaiton in 1992. The article discusses cases revisiting the Frampton rule, addressing employee defamation suits against employers, employment discrimination, issues arising in public sector employment, wage statutes, unemployment compensation, and workers' compensation. It also discusses a state statute prohibiting employment discrimination based on employees' off-duty use of tobacco.

Inherently Discriminatory Conduct Revisited: Do We Know It When We See It?, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

"This article traces the development of the inherently discriminatory doctrine, proposes some guidelines for determining when employer conduct falls under the rubric of the inherently discriminatory doctrine, and analyzes two cases dealing with employer use of temporary replacements during offensive lockouts in light of the proposed guidelines."

Comment On The Taft-Hartley Act, Title Iii, Thomas F. Broden

Journal Articles

A fair and just discussion of the Taft-Hartley Act is impossible without a fair determination of the purpose for which it was enacted. The Act itself explains that its purpose is to protect by legal procedures the rights of employees, employers, and the public concerning labor disputes affecting commerce. But to understand fully the basic purpose for this or another law applicable to labor-management relations, we must examine the justification for government activity in the economic sphere.