Law Commons^™

Family Security Insurance: A New Foundation For Economic Security, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center, Berkeley Center On Health, Economic & Family Security, Uc Berkeley School Of Law

Published Reports

A report released by Georgetown Law's Workplace Flexibility 2010 and the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS) outlining a blueprint for establishing and financing a new national insurance program to provide wage replacement for time off for health and caregiving needs. The report describes the need among working Americans for time off from work to address personal illness, to care for a new child, or to care for a loved one with a serious illness. It argues that the need for time off is no longer an issue for individual families or select industries, but a …

Reply Brief For Petitioner. Thompson V. North American Stainless, Lp, 562 U.S. 170 (2011) (No. 09-291), 2010 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 2135, Eric Schnapper, David O'Brien Suetholz, Lisa S. Blatt, Anthony Franze

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Judicial Amendments Treating Citizen And Immigrant Workers Equally . . . Badly: Labor Rights Without Effective Remedies, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Consider The Source: When The Harasser Is The Boss, Susan Grover, Kimberly Piro

Faculty Publications

In Consider the Source, Susan Grover and Kim Piro argue for a change in the analysis that courts apply to determine whether actionable workplace harassment has occurred. They identify a gap in current doctrine, which allows courts to ignore the status of the harasser as co-worker or supervisor. The authors argue that harassment at the hands of a supervisor is necessarily more severe and pervasive than the same harassment by a coworker. As a result, they recommend that the harasser's identity as a supervisor or co-worker be treated as a necessary consideration when courts assess whether actionable harassment has occurred.

Reinventing The Eeoc, Nancy M. Modesitt

All Faculty Scholarship

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has struggled to be a meaningful force in eradicating employment discrimination since its inception. The primary reasons for this are structural in nature. The EEOC was designed to react to discrimination complaints by investigating and conciliating all of the thousands of complaints filed annually. The EEOC has never been able to investigate all these complaints despite using the vast majority of its resources attempting to do so. The devotion of resources to managing and investigating the huge volume of complaints prevents the EEOC from taking more effective steps to eliminate discrimination. This article proposes …

The Gross Beast Of Burden Of Proof: Experimental Evidence On How The Burden Of Proof Influences Employment Discrimination Case Outcomes, David Sherwyn, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Scholarly and public attention to the burden of proof and jury instructions has increased dramatically since the Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. Gross holds that the so-called mixed-motive jury instruction, which we call the motivating factor instruction, is not available in age, and possibly disability and retaliation cases. The decision prompted an outcry from the plaintiffs' bar and Congress has proposed legislation to overturn Gross. Despite the outcry, a simple question persists: Does the motivating factor jury instruction influence case outcomes? Results from our experimental mock jury study suggest that such jury instructions …

Erisa Preemption Doctrine As Health Policy, Joshua P. Booth, Larry I. Palmer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Redressing All Erisa Fiduciary Breaches Under Section 409 (A), Eric D. Chason

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reply Brief. Staub V. Proctor Hospital, 562 U.S. 411 (2011) (No. 09-400), 2010 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 1916, Patricia Ann Millet, Eric Schnapper, Julie L. Galassi

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Overview Of Job Protected Leave, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

An overview of job protected leave by number of employees and state.

Brief For Petitioner, Thompson V. North American Stainless, Lp, 562 U.S. 170 (2011) (No. 09-291), 2010 Wl 3501186, Eric Schnapper, David O'Brien Suetholz, Lisa S. Blatt

Court Briefs

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Section 704(a) of Title VII forbids an employer from retaliating against an employee because he or she engaged in certain protected activity. The questions presented are:

(1) Does section 704(a) forbid an employer from retaliating for such activity by inflicting reprisals on a third party, such as a spouse, family member or fiance, who is closely associated with the employee who engaged in such protected activity?

(2) If so, may that prohibition be enforced in a civil action brought by the third party victim?

Why Is Child Labour Detrimental For Children?, Cassandra Fernandes Faria

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Eradicating Child Labour In Pakistan, Nilofar Vazir, Yasmeen Mehboob Meghani

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Data Note: Measuring The Outcomes Of Job Seekers With Intellectual Or Developmental Disabilities In The Vocational Rehabilitation Program, Daria Domin, Alberto Migliore

Data Note Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Most people with intellectual or developmental disabilities aspire to gainful employment. To assist them with this goal, state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agencies offer employment-development services that are based upon Individualized Plans for Employment (IPEs). A commonly used measure of outcomes is the rehabilitation rate, which is defined as the percentage of individuals who achieve employment out of all individuals whose cases were closed after receiving services. This indicator, however, neglects to consider that for various reasons not all individuals progress to receive services. This information is important because not receiving services translates directly into exiting the VR program without an …

Exploring Policy Models For Extended Time Off, Erica H. Zielewski, Shelley Waters Boots

Memos and Fact Sheets

Whether it’s a personal health condition, the birth of a new child, or the need to address a serious health issue of an aging parent, many, if not most workers, find that at certain points in their lives, they will need an extended amount of time off from work. We refer to this as Extended Time Off (EXTO). In addition, there is a growing body of research that outlines the potential benefits of paid time off for workers, their families (and in particular children), as well as some research suggesting a benefit to employers providing paid EXTO. While the U.S. …

Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act Of 1978: Overview, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

The Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act aims to utilize the potential of persons who do not work a traditional forty-hour workweek. Having found that part-time permanent employment has a number of benefits,i Congress passed legislation extending part-time career employment opportunities throughout the federal government in 1978.

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Perez V. Saks Fifth Avenue, Inc. (No. 09-1535), 2010 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 4245, Eric Schnapper, Erika Deutsch Rotbart

Court Briefs

QUESTION PRESENTED Where a discrimination plaintiff asserts that the ultimate decisionmaker who dismissed her was influenced by a different official who acted with an unlawful motive, must the plaintiff prove that the unltimate decisionmaker was a "mere conduit" for the motives of the unlawfully motivated official?

Supplemental Brief For Petitioner. Thompson V. North American Stainless, Lp, 562 U.S. 170 (2011) (No. 09-291), 2010 U.S. S. Ct. Briefs Lexis 2990, Eric Schnapper, David Suetholz

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Free Labor Today, James G. Pope

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

During the first half of the 20th Century, the period when all of the United States’ major workers’ rights statutes were enacted, the American labor movement claimed the rights to organize and strike under the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S Constitution. Beginning in 1909, it was the official policy of the American Federation of Labor that a worker confronted with an unconstitutional injunction had an “imperative duty” to “refuse obedience and to take whatever consequences may ensue.” At a time when union institutions were as weak as they are today, every attack on workers’ rights was met with an impassioned …

Legal And Ethical Implications Of Corporate Social Networks, Gundars Kaupins, Susan Park

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Corporate social networking sites provide employees and employers with considerable opportunity to share information and become friends. Unfortunately, American laws do not directly address social networking site usage. The National Labor Relations Act, civil rights laws, and various common law doctrines such as employment at-will and defamation provide the pattern for future social networking laws. Ethical considerations such as productivity, security, goodwill, privacy, accuracy, and discipline fairness also affect future laws. Corporate policies on corporate social networking should balance the employer‘s and employee‘s interests. Existing laws and ethical issues associated with social networking should impact social networking policies related to …

The Statute Of Frauds And Oral Promises Of Job Security The Tenuous Distinction Between Performance And Excusable Nonperformance, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Pedagogy And Critique: Values And Assumptions In The Law School Classroom, Richard Michael Fischl

The Docket

Michael Fischl offers further reflections on the importance of Emeritus Professor James Atleson's scholarship, in response to our Symposium on James Atleson's Values and Assumptions in American Labor Law: A Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Retrospective, 57 Buff. L. Rev. 629.

Review Of 'Understanding Labor And Employment Law In China' By Ronald C. Brown, Nicholas C. Howson

Law & Economics Working Papers

Review of Ronald C. Brown's UNDERSTANDING LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW IN CHINA (Cambridge University Press, 2010) which review describes an alternative way of describing and analyzing law and legal institutions in contemporary China generally, and labor law specifically.

Respecting Working Mothers With Infant Children: The Need For Increased Federal Intervention To Develop, Protect, And Support A Breastfeeding Culture In The United States, Heather M. Kolinsky

Faculty Scholarship

The author argues that the benefits of breastfeeding are overwhelming and that more needs to be done to ensure that all women have a viable option to continue breastfeeding upon returning to work, particularly the working poor and minorities. Those least likely to breastfeed are more likely to be part of an at risk population in terms of health. Most significantly, the lack of a cohesive policy in the workplace has had a disparate impact on the most vulnerable populations of breastfeeding mothers and their children. The lack of federal protection and a patchwork of protection in the states have …

Book Review (Paul Frymer's Black And Blue: African Americans, The Labor Movement, And The Decline Of The Democratic Party)., Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sprawl, Family Rhythms, And The Four-Day Work Week, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

We evaluate the four-day work week against the background of other institutional and social practices and constraints. But we fix these other variables when considering the value of this work reform. For example, workers enjoy the commute time and expense savings associated with a four-day week. These savings would mean little if the commutes in question were negligible. Therefore, the value of the four-day work week depends in part on the social history that gave us increasingly substantial commutes. This Article seeks to highlight some of the institutional practices that influence the adoption of a four-day work week, particularly those …

Liability For Unconscious Discrimination? A Thought Experiment In The Theory Of Employment Discrimination Law, Patrick S. Shin

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

A steadily mounting body of social science research suggests that ascertaining a person’s conscious motives for an action may not always provide a complete explanation of why he did it. The phenomenon of unconscious bias presents a worrisome impediment to the achievement of fair equality in the workplace. There have been numerous deeply insightful articles discussing various aspects of this problem and canvassing its implications for antidiscrimination law. My purpose in this paper is to focus directly on what might be called a more naïve question: should implicit bias be a basis of disparate treatment liability under Title VII? The …

A New Board Policy On Deferral To Arbitration: Acknowledging And Delimiting Union Waiver Of Employee Statutory Rights, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers the extent to which the National Labor Relations Board should defer in its protection of statutory rights to the private arbitration process under collective bargaining. The article explains and criticizes the theory of implied union waiver advanced by the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals under the leadership of Judge Harry Edwards. It posits a reformulation of Board deferral doctrine for waivable substantive rights. The article also consider the relevance of the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in 14 Penn Plaza, LLC v. Pyett to Board deferral to arbitration in cases involving § 7 rights that are …

Erasing Boundaries: Masculinities, Sexual Minorities, And Employment Discrimination, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This Article analyzes the application of employment discrimination law to sexual minorities--lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex individuals. It evaluates Title VII and state anti-discrimination laws' treatment of these individuals, and is the first article to use masculinities research, theoretical and empirical, to explain employment discrimination against sexual minorities. While the Article concludes that new legislation would further the interests of sexual minorities, it posits that it is neither necessary nor sufficient to solving the employment discrimination problems of sexual minorities. A major problem lies in the courts' binary view of sex and gender, a view that identifies men and …

Pitfalls Of Fmla And Collective Bargaining Agreements, Karin Mika

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Mika discusses union contracts and how employers must be aware of family and medical leave rights when applying contract provisions.