Law Commons^™

Peril And Possibility: Strikes, Rights, And Legal Change In The Era Of Trump, Kate Andrias

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Everyone in this audience is well aware of the problems plaguing reiterating. The wealthiest one percent of Americans takes home nearly a quarter of our national income and owns forty percent of the nation's wealth.

The Bible Of Labor Arbitration: Tribute To Professor Frank Elkouri, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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Each of the three traditional learned professions has had its “bible.” Divines had the progenitor, the Holy Bible itself; medical doctors had Gray’s Anatomy; and lawyers had Blackstone. What could be more fitting than that the sprightly newcomer to the ranks of the learned professions—labor arbitration—should also have its own bible: Elkouri & Elkouri, How Arbitration Works? But while Blackstone, Gray’s, and perhaps even the King James Version have largely been supplanted by sleeker, more contemporary models, nothing of the sort has happened to Elkouri. It just sails on majestically from one edition to another, now heading into its seventh.

Foreword, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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Specialists in any field have a vested interest in their mastery of the subject. Expertise, after all, is their stock in trade. Assaults on the conventional wisdom can be unnerving if not discrediting. In the pages that follow, such an experience awaits all conscientious readers with a labor background who dare to expose themselves to Professor Charles Morris's provocative, iconoclastic, and ultimately persuasive arguments. He insists that a half-century of American labor law thinking has gone astray in failing to recognize the duty of an employer to bargain with a labor union representing less than a majority of the firm's …

The Once And Future Labor Act: Myths And Realities, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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In this provocative article Professor St. Antoine laments, "I cannot believe that a private-sector workforce that is only one-tenth organized is ultimately good for labor, for management, or for the whole of our society." His speech to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers outlines the original purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the reasons for the drastic decline in the percentage of the workforce that is unionized, and his suggestions for changes in the law that would encourage and promote collective bargaining.

The Nlra: A Call To Collective Bargaining, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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A century ago the legal specialty of most members of this audience would have been known as Master and Servant Law. By the time my generation entered law school, the Decennial Dgest had just added a new topic - Labor Relations Law. That of course dealt with collective bargaining and union-management relations generally. Now, a half century further along, we might seem to have come full circle, to judge by the lectures of the two eminent jurists who inaugurated this series. Both Abner Mikva and Richard Posner spoke on highly important and timely subjects, and yet those would be classified, …

Arbitration And Judicial Review, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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A quarter century ago, in a presentation at the Academy's annual meeting, I used the phrase "contract reader" to characterize the role an arbitrator plays in construing a collective bargaining agreement. That two-word phrase may be the only thing I ever said before this body that has been remembered. Unfortunately, it is almost invariably misunderstood. Time and again members have reproached me: "What's the big deal about contract reading, anyway? Isn't it just the same as contract interpretation?" Or, more substantively scathing: "Do you really think, Ted, that all you have to do to interpret a labor agreement is to …

Proceedings Of The 1997 Annual Meeting Association Of American Law School Sections On Employment Discrimination Law And Alternative Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine, Herbert Bernhardt, Catherine Hagen, Paul Tobias, Marion Zinman

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The following is an edited transcript of the proceedings of the joint meeting of the Employment Discrimination Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections at the AALS Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 7, 1997.

Arbitration: Back To The Future, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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A strong new ideological current is sweeping through much of the Western World. At one extreme it manifests itself as a deep distrust of big government. In more modest form, it is a sense of skepticism or disillusionment about the capacity of big government to deal effectively with the problems confronting our society. In continental Europe today there is much talk of the principle of "subsidiarity," the notion that social and economic ills should be treated at the lowest level feasible, usually the level closest to the people directly affected. In the United States there is much talk of "privatization," …

Section 1: Nuts And Bolts, David A. Santacroce

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Workers facing plant closing and permanent or long-term layoffs now have a little more legal protection to give them some time to plan for retraining and to look for new jobs.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act provides for 60 days advance notice to certain workers affected by a plant closing or mass layoff. This law was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1988 after having been sought for many years by unions and other workers' rights advocates.

Vigorous action by the labor movement and strong public support led to passage of the WARN Act in spite of …

Supreme Court Philosophy On Labor And Employment Issues, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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It would not take a confirmed cynic to suggest that the title of this paper amounts to an oxymoron. That soft-hearted but tough-minded commentator, Florian Bartosic, and his collaborator, Gary Minda, came close to putting it in so many words: " [T]he Supreme Court lacks a consistent and coherent theory of labor law" (1982). My own view is somewhat different. First, lack of a consistent judicial philosophy is not all bad; at least it is better than a consistently wrong philosophy. Second, the vacillating theories of the Supreme Court tend to reflect the divergent attitudes of American society toward labor …

Model Uniform Employment Termination Act, National Conference Of Commissioners On Uniform State Laws

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The Scope and Program Committee, at its meeting on January 11-12, 1985, recommended to the Executive Committee that it appoint a Committee to draft a Uniform Wrongful Termination Act. The recommendation was based in part on studies indicating that recent judicial modifications in the doctrine of employment at will had created great uncertainty for both employers and employees. (That uncertainty has grown. See infra.) Members of the Scope and Program Committee stressed that uniformity would be desirable because employees might be hired in one state, work in another, and be fired in a third, and that the subject gave the …

At-Will Employment And The Handsome American: A Case Study In Law And Social Psychology, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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The past decade has seen a genuine revolution in employment law, as some forty American jurisdictions, in square holdings or strong dictum and on one or more diverse theories, have modified the conventional doctrine whereby employers "may dismiss their employees at will...for good cause, for no cause or even for cause morally wrong." In this paper I shall briefly review the theories most frequently invoked by the courts in dealing with wrongful dismissal and indicate their deficiencies as a permanent solution for the problem. Next, I shall summarize the major arguments for and against the doctrine of employment at will. …

Workers' Compensation In Michigan: Costs, Benefits And Fairness: A Report To Governor James J. Blanchard's Cabinet Council On Jobs And Economic Development From Theodore J. St. Antoine, Special Counselor On Workers' Compensation, Theodore St. Antoine

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On September 14, 1983, Governor James J. Blanchard issued the following statement and charge in appointing Theodore J. St. Antoine as Special Counselor on Workers' Compensation:

In the past two decades, workers' compensation has been the subject of much discussion and debate among all segments of the industrial community and the several branches of state government in Michigan. During this period, three separate commissions have engaged in extensive analysis of the Michigan Workers' Compensation Law. In 1980, and again in 1981, substantial amendments were added to the statute. Nonetheless, the controversy over this system continues.

Important and deserving interests are …

Foreword To The Developing Labor Law: The Board, The Courts, And The National Labor Relations Act, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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Over a dozen years ago, while I was serving as Secretary of what was then styled the Section of Labor Relations Law, I had a ringside seat at the production of the first edition of THE DEVELOPING LABOR LAW. I remember counting myself thrice blessed. I had no role whatsoever to play in the impossible task Charlie Morris had undertaken. Yet if by some miracle he succeeded, I could join my fellow Council members in taking due credit for our sagacity in sponsoring such an ambitious and imaginative project. And as a teacher and researcher, I would have available a …

Proposed Labor Reform: "Brave New World" Or "Looking Backward"?, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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By now it is a commonplace in the labor relations community that there are two significant deficiencies in the administration of the National Labor Relations Act. Neither is a matter of substantive law in the usual sense. The first is the inordinate delay in securing a remedy in contested cases, and the second is the inadequacy of the remedy in certain critical situations. I should like to examine a few key recommendations of the NLRB Task Force, and a few key provisions of the proposed Labor Reform Act, in light of those two central concerns.

In my assessment I shall …

The Labor Board And The Arbitrators, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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The Labor Relations Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan held its second program of the current year, from May 27 through May 30, 1967 on Mackinaw Island, on a variety of subject matters with excellent presentations by the resource people conducting each of the various symposiums. Those who were unable to be present in this joint venture of pleasure and legal presentations will be able to at least vicariously "gather in the sheaves" of the legal wisdom disseminated during the program by the report contained herein. For those who were fortunate enough to attend plus those who didn't, …

Collective Bargaining And The Antitrust Laws, Theodore J. St. Antoine

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A central aim of the antitrust laws is the promotion of competition. A central aim of collective bargaining is the elimination of competition-according to classical trade union theory, the elimination of wage competition among all employees doing the same job in the same industry. Given these disparate aims, the antitrust laws and collective bargaining will almost inevitably tend to clash. To harmonize them, the type of competition which the law is intended to foster must be carefully distinguished from the type of competition which union-employer bargaining can properly displace. The Supreme Court's last major effort to draw the demarcation line …