Law Commons^™

From Coolidge To Christie: Historical Antecedents Of Current Government Officials Dealing With Public Sector Labor Unions, Bryan J. Soukup

Law Student Publications

One might ask: what do Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, Scott Walker and Chris Christie have in common? The most obvious answer is that they all are (or were) Republican Governors, but these four men have something much deeper in common. All four have faced-off against powerful public sector labor unions and won. This paper will address and examine the similarities between the anti-union actions taken by these men— Coolidge and the Boston Police Strike of 1919, Reagan and the Professional Air Traffic Controllers (“PATCO”) Strike of 1981, and Walker and Christie’s recent dealings with public employee unions. In the end, …

Public-Sector Unions, Public Employees: May You Live In Interesting Times, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Sheathed Sword: Union Efficacy In Nonbargaining States, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

Section I of this article briefly reviews the law in Virginia and North Carolina. Section II examines, in detail, many of the strategies and tactics unions have utilized, both successfully and unsuccessfully, in Virginia and North Carolina. Section III discusses the overwhelming challenges that public-sector unions, despite their success, still face under the laws and political climate in hostile states. Finally, section IV offers a brief analysis of how unions in other states that prohibit or severely limit collective bargaining can emulate their successes and learn from their failures.

The Sheathed Sword: Public-Sector Union Efficacy In Non-Bargaining States, William Warwick

Law Student Publications

Section I of this article briefly reviews the law in Virginia and North Carolina. Section II examines, in detail, many of the strategies and tactics unions have utilized, both successfully and unsuccessfully, in Virginia and North Carolina. Section III discusses the overwhelming challenges that public-sector unions, despite their success, still face under the laws and political climate in hostile states. Finally, *277 section IV offers a brief analysis of how unions in other states that prohibit or severely limit collective bargaining can emulate their successes and learn from their failures.

Mexico's Dilemma: Workers' Rights Or Workers' Comparative Advantage In The Age Of Globalization?, Ranko Shiraki Oliver

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Before Wisconsin And Ohio: The Quiet Success Of Card-Check Organizing In The Public Sector, Rafael Gely, Timothy D. Chandler

Faculty Publications

Card-check laws, which have been unsuccessfully pursued by private-sector unions, mandate that employers recognize the union as the representative of employees on the basis of signed authorization cards without reliance on a representation election. Card check authorization benefits unions because it short circuits the usual organizing process by eliminating the union's need to further prove majority support in a secret ballot election.' But by doing so, it imposes costs on employers by restricting their efforts to erode union support through aggressive campaign tactics. Our paper seeks to better understand the development of these laws and their effects, and in that …

Card-Check Laws And Public-Sector Union Membership In The States, Rafael Gely, Timothy D. Chandler

Faculty Publications

We examine the impact of state card-check legislation on public-sector union membership. Based on an empirical analysis of data from 2000 to 2009, a time during which eight states enacted card-check legislation for public employees, we find significantly higher levels of public-sector union membership for states that passed card-check legislation in years after the laws were enacted relative to states that did not pass such laws. Moreover, average public-sector union membership increased for the states that passed card-check legislation after the laws were passed relative to their precard-check law union-membership levels.

Who Should Talk? What Counts As Employee Voice And Who Stands To Gain, Aditi Bagchi

All Faculty Scholarship

This symposium piece responds to an article by Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt titled "Promoting Employee Voice in the American Economy: A Call for Comprehensive Reform." Professor Schmidt argues in favor of increasing employee voice in corporate governance. In this reply, Professor Bagchi distinguishes between "hard voice," "soft voice" and information rights as three variants of employee voice. She casts doubt on the material benefits from Professor Dau-Schmidt's proposals, which focus on hard and soft voice, to either employees or corporate stakeholders more broadly. The present focus of corporate governance on the relationship between shareholders and managers, to the exclusion of employees, …

Work, Caregiving, And Masculinities, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

In her book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, Joan Williams demonstrates the vulnerability of parent workers in working class America. In Chapter 2, "One Sick Child Away from Being Fired," she examines the records of ninety-nine union arbitrations to analyze the problems of working class parents who struggle to juggle their working and parenting responsibilities. Because this chapter is a tour de force in an overall excellent book, and because it suggests an area that Professor McGinley's research has focused on over the past number of years, in this Essay, Professor McGinley limits her discussion almost exclusively to this chapter. …

Organizing Principles: The Significance Of Card-Checks Laws, Rafael Gely, Timothy D. Chandler

Faculty Publications

The use of “card checks” as a method of union organizing has recently garnered a lot of attention, much of it surrounding the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. If passed, this legislation would amend the National Labor Relations Act by requiring employers to recognize a union when the employer is presented with evidence of majority support for union recognition via union authorization cards. Although the proposed bill has had difficulty gaining traction in the U.S. Congress, several states have recently passed similar legislation covering state and local public employees. In this article, we compare card-check organizing by public sector employees …

Promoting Employee Voice In The American Economy: A Call For Comprehensive Reform, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

It has become apparent that there are serious deficiencies in the American model of production. Our model of corporate governance has recently come under intense scrutiny in the academic literature and the popular press. There are increasing concerns that American corporations are too focused on short-run profits and stock prices, at the expense of long-term strategies and investments that would benefit the long-run value of the firm, employees, and the American economy at large. In the pursuit of short-run shareholder interests, American corporations have bestowed on senior executives enormous compensation packages that seem increasingly divorced from any notion of rationality, …

Yes, Labor Markets Are Flawed--But So Is The Economic Case For Mandating Employee Voice In Corporate Governance, Scott A. Moss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Temporarily Unchained: The Drive To Unionize Foreign Seasonal Agricultural Workers In Canada – A Comment On Greenway Farms And Ufcw, Robert Russo

All Faculty Publications

A Case Comment on Greenway Farms and UFCW

The Myth Of Equality In The Employment Relation, Aditi Bagchi

All Faculty Scholarship

Although it is widely understood that employers and employees are not equally situated, we fail adequately to account for this inequality in the law governing their relationship. We can best understand this inequality in terms of status, which encompasses one’s level of income, leisure and discretion. For a variety of misguided reasons, contract law has been historically highly resistant to the introduction of status-based principles. Courts have preferred to characterize the unfavorable circumstances that many employees face as the product of unequal bargaining power. But bargaining power disparity does not capture the moral problem raised by inequality in the employment …

Card Check Recognition: New House Rules For Union Organizing?, Rafael Gely, Timothy D. Chandler

Faculty Publications

A significant policy debate has been occurring regarding union organizing methods in the United States. This debate focuses on the appropriateness of granting union recognition based on majority support as demonstrated by union authorization card signatures, also known as “card checking.” Critics describe the practice as anathema to basic democratic principles and accuse unions of wanting to deal from the bottom of the deck to secure undeserved representation of employees. Proponents of card check recognition argue that reliance on National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) organizing procedures fails to protect employees' rights to organize, and forces unions to compete against a …

Which Side Are You On? Unionization In Social Service Nonprofits, Eduardo R.C. Capulong

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article examines nonprofit union organizing from an institutional perspective. Specifically, the author asks a basic question: do unions belong in social service nonprofits or are such efforts somehow misguided? To answer the question, the article examines the dual institutional role social service nonprofits play and explores strategies to harmonize their conflicting tendencies. The author argues that the industry-wide unionization of social service nonprofits is the best means by which to actualize the nonprofit ethos and counteract these organizations' tendency to lower wages and working conditions, thereby facilitating cuts in social spending.

Part I discusses the factors that have led …

Transnational Labor Mobilizing In Two Mexican Maquiladoras: The Struggle For Democratic Globalization, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

The struggle to improve workers' rights in Mexican maquiladoras and export processing zones elsewhere in the world is central to the politics of global economic integration. State-centered development is increasingly compromised by supranational institutions and trade agreements. Meanwhile, multinational corporations are relocating at an unprecedented rate to overseas locations. Export processing zones are notorious for poor working conditions and result in a "race to the bottom." The maquila sector in Mexico is a prime example of this phenomenon. This article uses two case studies to examine ways in which grassroots organizing has successfully resisted low wages and poor working conditions …

Let Unions Be Unions: Allowing Grants Of Benefits During Representation Campaigns, Michael Hayes

All Faculty Scholarship

Unions exist to provide assistance to employees; this is their reason for being. Yet once a union begins a campaign to represent a group of employees, it is legally barred from extending tangible assistance to the workers. The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or the "Board") and courts deem a union grant of benefits to employees during or prior to a representation campaign objectionable conduct that requires setting aside the results of the representation election and holding another election.

This article's proposal to open the door to unconditional union benefits during an organizing campaign will likely be controversial. Part of …

Has Wright Line Gone Wrong? Why Pretext Can Be Sufficient To Prove Discrimination Under The National Labor Relations Act,, Michael Hayes

All Faculty Scholarship

Every year in the United States, thousands of employees are illegally fired for joining or supporting unions. These employees must bring their claims to the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”), which applies its famous Wright Line standard to decide thousands of discrimination cases each year.

Probably the most common issue in labor discrimination cases is “pretext.” In virtually every case, an employer claims that it fired an employee not for an illegal anti-union motive, but for a legitimate business reason. The pretext issue arises when the evidence shows that the legitimate reason asserted by the employer was most likely …

Protecting Unionized Employees Against Discrimination: The Fourth Circuit's Misinterpretation Of Supreme Court Precedent, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

This article will first review the Supreme Court's arbitration jurisprudence, concentrating on labor and employment law cases. Next, the article will analyze the cases involving arbitration under collective bargaining agreements decided by the courts of appeals subsequent to Gilmer. The article will then evaluate the two different approaches of the circuit courts in light of the law relating to collective bargaining and union representation. Finally, the article will review alternative methods of protecting employee rights to determine whether unions can preserve employees' statutory rights under the rule of the Fourth Circuit. The article concludes that the Supreme Court should …

Political Power Of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing And The Courts In Modern England, 1871-Present, The , Rachel Vorspan

Faculty Scholarship

This inquiry, a comprehensive historical study of the impact of nuisance law on labor picketing in England, comprises six sections. Part I introduces general principles of labor law and nuisance law in the nineteenth century, particularly the legislative scheme of "collective laissezfaire" that emerged after 1871 and remained relatively intact until 1980. Part II examines the use of nuisance doctrines against picketers in the first phase of confrontational picketing from 1889 to 1906, when the appearance of militant unions representing unskilled workers stimulated inventive judicial responses in both private and public nuisance. Part III investigates the much heralded judicial and …

Ombudsman Offices In The Federal Government - An Emerging Trend, Jeffrey Lubbers

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Arbitration, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Book Chapters

The law did not look kindly on arbitration in its infancy. As a process by which two or more parties could agree to have an impartial outsider resolve a dispute between them, arbitration was seen as a usurpation of the judiciary' sown functions, as an attempt to "oust the courts of jurisdiction." That was the English view, and American courts were similarly hostile. They would not order specific performance of an executory (unperformed) agreement to arbitrate, nor grant more than nominal damages for the usual breach. Only an arbitral award actually issued was enforceable at common law. All this began …

Chapter 5: Unions, Finance, And Labor's Capital, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

Events in recent decades have dramatized the need for labor attention beyond narrow issues of wages and working conditions. In the face of widespread industrial disinvestment, unions have been hard-pressed to protect the job status or employment, or the future of their members. At the same time, the developing labor law has narrowed the range of bargaining opportunities for unions to affect corporate decisions-the very decisions that result in job dislocations and corporate transformations. The effectiveness of strikes has been undermined by growing use of permanent replacement workers.

To thrive in the coming decades, unions must carve out a new …

Maintaining Order In The Post-Strike Workplace: Employee Expression And The Scope Of Section 7, Lyrissa Lidsky

Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of a typical strike, management often seeks to restore order to the workplace by imposing restrictions on employee expression. Although in principle employee expression is protected by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, courts, relying on outdated notions of workplace organization, often accept ad hoc management justifications for restrictions on employee expression. The author argues that after a strike, it is crucial for employees to be able to express their grievances or vent their frustrations at exactly the same time that employers feel it necessary to restrict expression as a way of re-imposing order in …

Union Security Agreements Under The National Labor Relations Act: The Statute, The Constitution, And The Court's Opinion In Beck, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Communications Workers of America v. Beck interpreted section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to prohibit the observance of agency shop agreements. By interpreting the statute in this way, the Court avoided the question of whether union security agreements under the NLRA are subject to constitutional scrutiny. The Court's determination that section 8(a)(3) does not allow agency shop agreements was an important decision affecting the enforceability of union security agreements in the vast majority of private sector bargaining agreements.

In this Article, Professor Dau-Schmidt criticizes the Court's interpretation of section 8(a)(3) in …

Teaching An Old Dog Old Tricks: Coppage V. Kansas And At-Will Employment Revisited, Kenneth M. Casebeer

Articles

No abstract provided.

Union Must Provide Attorney Representation Without Regard To Union Membership--National Treasury Employees Union V. Federal Labor Relations Authority, Beth Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute sets forth union guidelines for collective bargaining representation in the federal sector. A labor organization with recognized exclusivity is responsible for the non-discriminatory representation of all bargaining unit employees without regard to union membership. In National Treasury Employees Union v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, a case of first impression, the court considered whether a federal employees union may, in accordance with statutory obligations, consider union membership in determining the type of representation it provides to individual employees. The court held that by denying non-union members attorney representation and substituting representation by a shop steward …

Antitrust And Employer Restraints In Labor Markets, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the Sherman Act regulates concerted employer activity in the labor market only if such activity restrains or attempts to restrain the product market. After discussing the legislative history of the Act, the Article examines and synthesizes two conflicting lines of cases. Finally, the Article suggests how courts should dispose of challenges to employer conduct and posits the basis for a unified theory of labor-antitrust law.

Union Liability In Fair Representation Suits, Robert Jones

Journal Articles

In 1976 Charles V. Bowen, a United States Postal Service employee requested that his union, the American Postal Workers initiate arbitration proceedings to prevent his employer from firing him over an alleged altercation with another employee. After the union refused Bowen sued both the Service for firing him and American Postal Workers for breaching its duty of fair representation. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that a union that fails to properly represent an employee illegally fired from his job is liable for a portion of his lost wages. The Bowen decision poses a serious threat to …