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Captive Audience Meetings And Forced Listening: Lessons For Canada From The American Experience, Sara Slinn Oct 2015

Captive Audience Meetings And Forced Listening: Lessons For Canada From The American Experience, Sara Slinn

Sara Slinn

Widespread adoption of mandatory representation votes and express protection of employer speech invite employer anti-union campaigns during union organizing, including employer-held captive audience meetings. Therefore, the problem of whether and how to restrict employers’ captive audience communications during union organizing is of renewed relevance in Canada. Captive meetings are a long-standing feature of American labour relations. This article considers how treatment of captive meetings evolved in the U.S., including the notion of employee choice, the “marketplace of ideas” view of expression dominating the American debate, and the central role of the contest between constitutional and statutory rights. It also considers …


Bad Math: How Non-Union Employees Are Unconstitutionally Compelled To Subsidize Political Speech, Shirley V. Svorny, Melanie S. Williams Jan 2015

Bad Math: How Non-Union Employees Are Unconstitutionally Compelled To Subsidize Political Speech, Shirley V. Svorny, Melanie S. Williams

Melanie S. Williams

Employees’ right to organize and be represented by unions is in tension with the right of other employees not to join organizations as a condition of employment. Current law permits unions to assess agency fees from represented non-members, reflecting the cost of representational activities (for example, contract negotiation). Unions may not, however, assess non-members for the cost of political activities, since this would infringe on the constitutional rights of such employees by requiring them to subsidize political speech. The method of calculating agency fees, however, has been almost uniformly mishandled, resulting in overcharging non-union members. In this paper, we examine …


Employee Speech & Management Rights: A Counterintuitive Reading Of Garcetti V. Ceballos, Elizabeth Dale Nov 2014

Employee Speech & Management Rights: A Counterintuitive Reading Of Garcetti V. Ceballos, Elizabeth Dale

Elizabeth Dale

In the two years since the decision came down, courts and commentators generally have agreed that the Supreme Court's decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos sharply limited the First Amendment rights of public employees. In this Article, I argue that this widely shared interpretation overstates the case. The Court in Garcetti did not dramatically change the way it analyzed public employees' First Amendment rights. Instead, it restated the principles on which those claims rest, emphasizing management rights and the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. By making those two theories the centerpiece of the decision, the Court in Garcetti defined public employee speech rights …


The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson Jan 2014

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …


Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech For Public School Teachers, Stephen J. Elkind, Peter D. Kauffman Jul 2013

Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech For Public School Teachers, Stephen J. Elkind, Peter D. Kauffman

Stephen J Elkind

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court held that public employees are not entitled to free speech when speaking “pursuant to their official duties.” In most situations, this strips teachers of First Amendment protection when they discuss controversial subjects, such as homosexuality, with their students. To ensure their classrooms are tolerant and accepting environments for homosexual and questioning youth, teachers need free speech protection against adverse employment action their schools might take. The Garcetti Court, acknowledging that “expression related to academic scholarship and classroom instruction implicates” unique constitutional concerns, explicitly left open whether its decision applied in the education …


Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who Are You To Say Who Is Fairest Of Them All?, Ashley R. Brown Jul 2013

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who Are You To Say Who Is Fairest Of Them All?, Ashley R. Brown

Ashley R Brown

No abstract provided.


Can't Escape From The Memory: Social Media And Public Sector Labor Law, William A. Herbert Dec 2012

Can't Escape From The Memory: Social Media And Public Sector Labor Law, William A. Herbert

William A. Herbert

The Web 2.0 communicative revolution is impacting many fields of law, including labor and employment law. This article focuses upon the application and impact of statutory and constitutional doctrines on the use of social media in public employment in the United States. As part of that analysis, it will compare and contrast developments under the National Labor Relations Act, state collective bargaining and tenure laws and the First Amendment concerning social media. Through this comparative analysis, the article will highlight the distinctions and similarities of public sector labor law and their implications for the future.


Religion And Sports In The Undergraduate Classroom: A Surefire Way To Spark Student Interest, Adam Epstein Dec 2010

Religion And Sports In The Undergraduate Classroom: A Surefire Way To Spark Student Interest, Adam Epstein

Adam Epstein

The purpose of this pedagogical piece is to present an opportunity to discuss religion in the context of sports as a means of generating classroom discussion and prompting extra-curricular reading on topics pertaining to business law primarily at the undergraduate level. A discussion of religion and sports provides one avenue to pursue exploration of the free exercise and establishment clauses. Examples are provided in the intercollegiate, interscholastic and professional sport contexts. The article also provides a brief primer on the First Amendment generally, outlining some of the classic Supreme Court cases. The article then discusses a series of cases involving …