Law Commons^™

The 'Race To The Bottom' Returns: China’S Challenge To The International Labor Movement, Stephen F. Diamond

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

China is now, and increasingly, an integral player in the global economy and in international relations. Economic and political restructuring in China today is affecting the lives of millions, yet only a small number of top bureaucrats and wealthy regime-backed entrepreneurs are making the basic decisions about the outcome of this process. This bureaucratic and entrepreneurial class resists fiercely any serious attempt to build independent and democratic institutions such as trade unions.

This article will consider four areas of concern. First, the structural changes underway in the Chinese economy are creating both domestic and international imbalances that are exacerbating inequalities …

Judging Unions' Future Using A Historical Perspective: The Public Policy Choice Between Competition And Unionization, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper I look at unions' future using a historical perspective and focusing on the period of union ascendancy as well as the past few decades when unions have been in decline. We know trends currently in place are unfavorable to unions. What conditions would be favorable? The rise of unions from the 1930s through the early 1950s was due to the convergence of a number of events - an economic policy that attempted to restrict competition beginning in the 1930s, the twin beliefs that labor markets were inherently noncompetitive and/or that individual workplaces were exploitative, and low union …

Dueling Democracies: Protecting Labor Representation Elections From Governmental Interference, John W. Teeter Jr

Faculty Articles

Public officials should be free to support or oppose unionization, but we must prevent their electioneering from undermining the industrial democracy of labor representative elections. Such elections are designed to be freely held; workers decide whether they wish to be represented by a union for purposes of collective bargaining. This choice of whether to unionize is for the workers alone without any governmental favoritism or coercion.

Government officials however have repeatedly jeopardized laboratory conditions by campaigning in labor representation elections. The Board should reassure workers of their right to cast uncoerced ballots, clarify that the political officials are not declaring …

Workers’ Compensation And Vocational Rehabilitation Benefits For Undocumented Workers: Reconciling The Purported Conflicts Between State Law, Federal Immigration Law, And Equal Protection To Prevent The Creation Of A Disposable Workforce, Robert I. Correales

Scholarly Works

This Article argues that sound public policy supports states providing vocational rehabilitation services to undocumented workers who have been injured in work-related accidents. Part I of the Article provides context by analyzing some of the complexities of undocumented immigrants’ lives in the United States. Part II discusses the history and economics of vocational rehabilitation programs established by workers’ compensation systems. Part III discusses ways in which immigration law and enforcement contribute to the formation of this shadow population. Part IV analyzes purported conflicts between vocational rehabilitation programs and the Immigration Reform Control Act of 1986 as they arose in Tarango …

Did Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. Produce Disposable Workers?, Robert I. Correales

Scholarly Works

On March 27, 2002, The United State Supreme Court ruled in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. N.L.R.B. that, although undocumented workers are “employees” within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), they cannot be answered backpay remedies, even if discharged in violation of the Act. The Hoffman decision represents a retrenchment from a trend in which virtually all jurisdictions that had considered the issue found in favor of the workers. The principal rationale in support of these remedies for undocumented workers had been that such awards are not only remedial but also serve important deterrent functions that protect the …