Law Commons^™

Fair Representation As Equal Protection, Michael C. Harper, Ira C. Lupu

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professors Harper and Lupu argue that a model of "principled democracy" can systematize the now-disjointed body of labor law that imposes upon labor unions a duty of fair representation (DFR). The authors derive the framework for this model from the normative principle at the core of equal protection theory - that decisionmakers must accord "equal respect" to all within their jurisdiction. To transform equal protection doctrine into standards for the DFR, the authors strip away the institutional components of equal protection doctrine that are appropriate for judicial review of decisions made by public officials but inapplicable to …

The Consumer's Emerging Right To Boycott: Naacp V. Claiborne Hardware And Its Implications For American Labor Law, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

Hard cases do not always make bad law. Sometimes, when confronted with records that will yield neither to the direct application of established legal principles nor to factual manipulation, courts articulate, or at least suggest, a new principle which should and often does refine a body of old law. The Supreme Court's decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co." should become a prominent and salutary example of such hard cases. Before Claiborne Hardware, the Court had indicated that legislatures, for rational economic policy reasons, could make peaceful consumer boycotts illegal.' Confronted with compelling facts in the Claiborne Hardware …

Biological Monitoring: The Employer's Dilemma, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

The industrial workplace contains many potential health hazards that not only can cause great harm to workers, but also can destroy the employers’ economic stability. Often these hazards are documented and dealt with, but frequently they are unknown. When health-conscious employers monitor the physical well-being of their employees in an effort to avoid the terrible personal and economic costs these hazards can produce, they may be supplying their employees with the documentation necessary to recover financially for their industrial illnesses.

This Article analyzes this dilemma confronting employers. It describes the many factors employers must consider when deciding whether to institute …

Leveling The Road From Borg-Warner To First National Maintenance: The Scope Of Mandatory Bargaining, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court's most recent effort to distinguish nonmandatory bargaining topics, First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, ¹⁹ illustrates the Court's lack of clarity in this area and vindicates Cox's and Wellington's criticisms of the Court's approach in Borg-Warner. In First National Maintenance (F.N.M.), the Court held that an employer's decision "to shut down part of its business purely for economic reasons" was outside the scope of mandatory bargaining.²⁰ The Court could cite no evidence that Congress intended to prevent employee representatives from obtaining full effective bargaining over such decisions, nor did it articulate any general principle to …

Exercise Of Executive Discretion: A Study Of A Regional Office Of The Department Of Labor, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

Writing for a recent symposium on empirical research in administrative law, Professor Paul Verkuil noted that such research "casts light on one of the dark corners of the law. The vast majority of administrative decisions are of the informal variety, meaning they take place outside the reach of generic administrative procedure acts and frequently outside the courts themselves."' We are only beginning to appreciate how vast is this dark corner and how varied the possible modes of illumination.

This essay casts some additional light into the corner by reporting on a study of the exercise of executive discretion by a …

Union Waiver Of Employee Rights Under The National Labor Relations Act, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The author formulates a principle, based on the Supreme Court decision in NLRB v. Magnavox, to distinguish which employee rights protected by section 7 may not be waived by unions in collective bargaining agreements. In this article, the non-waiver principle is applied to the right to strike. In the next issue, Professor Harper will address application of the principle to Board deferral to arbitration, drawing on former Board Chairman Murphy's swing vote opinion in General American Transportation Corp.

Union Waiver Of Nlra Rights: Part 2-- A Fresh Approach To Board Deferral To Arbitration, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The author applies the non-waiverprinciple developed in Part I of this article to Board deferral to arbitration. Former Chairman Murphy's concurring opinion in General American Transportation Corp. is evaluated in light of the non- waiver princple. The author analyzes the issues not properly resolved in that opinion, while demonstrating its basic insight.

In Part 1 of this essay, I explored the implications of the Supreme Court's holding in NLRP v. Magnavox Co. that exclusive bargaining agents do not have the authority to waive certain rights protected by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Drawing on Magnavox, …