Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Gaming The System: The Exemption Of Professional Sports Teams From The Fair Labor Standards Act, Charlotte S. Alexander, Nathaniel Grow

Faculty Publications By Year

This article examines a little known exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act relieving seasonal recreational or amusement employers from their obligation to pay the minimum wage and overtime. After evaluating the existing, confused case law surrounding the exemption, we propose a new, simplified framework for applying the provision. We then apply this framework to a recent wave of FLSA lawsuits brought by cheerleaders, minor league baseball players, and stadium workers against professional sports teams. The article concludes by considering the policy implications of exempting this class of employers from the FLSA's wage and hour requirements.

Human Trafficking: Statute Comparisons And Attitudes In Nebraska, Katie Sheets

Seventh Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking (2015)

Human trafficking has become an issue for global concern. Here in the United States, the Federal government and all fifty states are taking steps to combat the pervasive problem. This study looks at the anti-human trafficking statutes of all fifty states and compares them with each other to see how each state stacks up against the other. Nebraska was the focus of the study as the unicameral has recently been enacting changes to the state’s laws against human trafficking. Nebraska was expected to at least be with the majority of states with their human trafficking provisions. The study then looked …

Right-To-Work:' The Issue That Won't Die — A Historical Perspective, Charles A. Scontras

Bureau of Labor Education

Phoenix-like, "right-to-work" measures have again surfaced in the state Legislature. Such measures are designed to prohibit employers from negotiating union security clauses by which all who benefit from union bargaining agreements pay their share of the costs involved in the union's legal obligation to represent all workers.

401(K) Plan Expenses, Anne Becker, Jeffrey Arnold

Pension Action Center Publications

Under a 401(k) plan, your benefit is your vested account balance. This account balance reflects the contributions you make to the plan, the contributions your employer makes to the plan on your behalf (if any), and investment gains and losses.

Many 401(k) plan participants are responsible for choosing how to invest their account balances. If you direct the investment of your 401(k) plan account balance, it is important to understand that fees and expenses may substantially reduce the growth of your 401(k) plan account balance over the course of your working life. The Department of Labor (DOL) estimates that paying …

Your Former Employer’S 401(K) Plan, Jeanne Medeiros Jd

Pension Action Center Publications

When you leave a job where you have participated in a 401(k) plan, you may have a number of different options about what to do with the money in that account. This fact sheet explains those options and offers guidance about the pros and cons of each option.

Here are some frequently asked questions answered in this face sheet:

Q. Can I leave my money in my former employer’s plan?

Q. What are my other options?

Q. If I decide to withdraw the account balance from my former employer’s plan, how do I do that, and how long should it …

Partnerships In Employment: Supporting Adults With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities In Their Communities, Jean Winsor, Jennifer Sulewski, Karen Flippo, John Butterworth

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This report highlights the latest strategies and best practices to better support adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) living and working in their community.

Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act (Passed Jan. 4, 2015), Emily G. Brown Jd, Ellen Bruce Jd

Pension Action Center Publications

The Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act, passed on January 4, 2015, creates an automatic enrollment payroll deduction IRA. The purpose of the program is to promote increased retirement savings participation for employees in the private sector. This fact sheet answers some basic questions about how this new program will affect workers and their employers in Illinois.

National & International Disability Inclusion In Employment, Debrittany Mitchell, Heike Boeltzig-Brown, Quinn Barbour

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Through research, technical assistance, training and collaboration the Institute for Community Inclusion strives to improve employment outcomes for individuals both nationally and internationally. The following highlights some of the work currently in progress in the United States and Japan.

Increasing Community Engagement For Individuals With Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities, Jennifer Bose, Jennifer Sulewski

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

These three projects highlight various aspects of the Institute for Community Inclusion's efforts to increase community engagement of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, both locally and nationally. The Transitions to Work project, for which ICI provides evaluation assistance, partners with Boston-area employers to increase engagement of adults with disabilities in the regional workforce. The Community Life Engagement initiative complements the employment focus by looking at other aspects of community life, such as volunteerism and participation in community events and resources. On the national level, Real People Real Jobs is a website and publication series highlighting the employment successes of …

The Impact Of Affirmative Action On The Employment Of Minorities And Women Over Three Decades: 1973-2003, Fidan Ana Kurtulus

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

What role has affirmative action played in the growth of minority and female employment in U.S. firms? This paper analyzes this issue by comparing the employment of minorities and women at firms holding federal contracts and therefore mandated to implement affirmative action, and at noncontracting firms, over the course of three decades spanning 1973–2003. It constitutes the first study to comprehensively document the long-term impact of affirmative action in federal contracting on the U.S. employment landscape. The study uses a new panel data set of over 100,000 large private-sector firms across all industries and regions, obtained from the U.S. Equal …

Do I Have To Cross The Picket Line?, Bureau Of Labor Education. University Of Maine

Bureau of Labor Education

Refusing to cross a lawfully established picket line is protected by the National Labor Relations Act. You have the legal right not to cross a picket line in solidarity with your own union, out of sympathy for workers from another union, or just to avoid confrontation. By refusing to cross a picket line while on duty you are essentially engaging in a strike in sympathy with the picketing workers. Refusing to cross a picket line is a legally protected act. When you approach a picket line you may be asked to honor the picket line. Politely asking someone not to …

A Signal Or A Silo? Title Vii's Unexpected Hegemony, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Title VII’s domination of employment discrimination law today was not inevitable. Indeed, when Title VII was initially enacted, its supporters viewed it as weak and flawed. They first sought to strengthen and improve the law by disseminating equal employment enforcement throughout the federal government. Only in the late 1970s did they instead favor consolidating enforcement under Title VII. Yet to labor historians and legal scholars, Title VII’s triumphs came at a steep cost to unions. They write wistfully of an alternative regime that would have better harmonized antidiscrimination with labor law’s recognition of workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively …

Intersectionality And Title Vii: A Brief (Pre-)History, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

Title VII was twenty-five years old when Kimberlé Crenshaw published her path-breaking article introducing “intersectionality” to critical legal scholarship. By the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reached its thirtieth birthday, the intersectionality critique had come of age, generating a sophisticated subfield and producing many articles that remain classics in the field of anti-discrimination law and beyond. Employment discrimination law was not the only target of intersectionality critics, but Title VII’s failure to capture and ameliorate the particular experiences of women of color loomed large in this early legal literature. Courts proved especially reluctant to recognize multi-dimensional discrimination against …

On Not 'Having It Both Ways' And Still Losing: Reflections On Fifty Years Of Pregnancy Litigation Under Title Vii, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

This article, published in the B.U. Law Review Symposium issue, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 50: Past, Present and Future,” reflects on the past fifty years of conflict and struggle over how to treat pregnancy discrimination under Title VII. Pregnancy has played a pivotal role in debates among feminist legal scholars and women’s rights advocates about the limitations of both the equal treatment and special treatment anti-discrimination frameworks. The article’s title references the much-discussed Wendy W. Williams cautionary note that if we cannot have it “both ways” we need to decide which way we want to have it …