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Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Brief Of Amicus Curiae The Washington And Lee University School Of Law Black Lung Clinic In Support Of Petitioners: California V. Texas, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Scholarly Articles

Section 1556 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) makes two major changes to the Black Lung Benefits Act. These changes remove limiting language to make it simpler for disabled miners and their families to establish that they are entitled to federal benefits. First, § 1556(a) reinstates the fifteen-year rebuttable presumption, which presumptively entitles former coal miners to benefits if they have worked over fifteen years underground and have a totally disabling pulmonary disease. The second, § 1556(b), reinstates a continuation of benefits for surviving spouses whose coal-mining spouse was receiving benefits at the time of their death. …

Harassment, Workplace Culture, And The Power And Limits Of Law, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

This article asks why it remains so difficult for employers to prevent and respond effectively to harassment, especially sexual harassment, and identifies promising points for legal intervention. It is sobering to consider social-science evidence of the myriad barriers to reporting sexual harassment – from the individual-level and interpersonal to those rooted in society at large. Most of these are out of reach for an employer but workplace culture stands out as a significant arena where employers have influence on whether harassment and other discriminatory behaviors are likely to thrive. Yet employers typically make choices in this area with attention to …

Proposal: Protecting U.S. Agricultural Workers Utilizing Existing Legal Structures And Augments To The U.S. Farm Bill, Alexia M. Kulwiec

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Taking Care Of The Caretakers: An Argument For A Cross-Sectoral Approach To Mental Health Resources For Farmers, Ranchers, And Agricultural Workers, Mary Dallas

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Fall Of Unions In The Coal Industry: How The New Era Of Labor Union Resurgence Can Protect The Miners That Remain, Emily Allender

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Arbitration Of Worker Contracts: New Prime's Proper Statutory Interpretation Of The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, Margaret L. Moses

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This article will discuss how, in a future case, if the Court applied the reasoning of its unanimous opinion in New Prime-that the language of the statute should be interpreted consistent with the meaning it had to the Congress that adopted it-no worker would be covered by the FAA. Part I will consider the scope of the Commerce Clause, and the expansion in the Court's understanding of Congress' power under the Clause that occurred post-1925. In Part II, the article will deal with the purpose of the FAA as understood at the time of its adoption, as well as …

Why Is There So Much Pre-Retirement Liquidity In The U.S. Pension System?, Kathryn L. Moore, John Turner

Law Faculty Books and Chapters

Some analysts argue that there is a retirement savings crisis in the United States. While the extent of the crisis is contested, most analysts agree that retirement savings in this nation is inadequate. Although the reasons for the retirement savings shortfall are many and complex, this paper focuses on one factor that leads to inadequate retirement savings in the United States: pre-retirement liquidity or leakage.

Pre-retirement liquidity or leakage refers to the ability of individuals to withdraw money from their retirement savings account prior to retirement and use that money for nonretirement purposes. The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) writes, …

Equitable Hiring Policy In Higher Education At The University Of Montana, Victoria Mckinley Bigelow, Kinsey Anderson

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Higher Education; University of Montana; Equity; Hiring; University; College; Montana; Missoula; Public Administration; Organization; Missoula; Diversity; Women; Policy

New Labor Viscerality? Work Stoppages In The "New Work" Non-Union Economy, Michael C. Duff

Saint Louis University Law Journal

COVID-19 work stoppages involving employees refusing to work because they are fearful of contracting coronavirus provide a recent dramatic opportunity for newer workplace law observers to grasp a well-established legal rule: both unionized and non-union employees possess rights to engage in work stoppages under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). This article explains that employees engaging in concerted work stoppages, in good faith reaction to health and safety dangers, are prima facie protected from discharge. The article carefully distinguishes between NLRA § 7 and § 502 work stoppages. Crucially, and contrary to § 502 work stoppages, the health and safety-related …

The New Enforcement Regime: Revisiting The Law Of Employee Competition (And The Scholarship Of Professor Charles Sullivan) With 2020 Vision, Rachel Arnow-Richman

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article, prepared for Seton Hall Law School’s 2019 Symposium on the scholarship of Professor Charles Sullivan, labels and critiques “the new enforcement regime” in employee mobility law. For centuries, employee noncompetes have been regulated primarily through the common law rule of reason. The last decade, however, has witnessed a surge in public initiatives seeking to restrict employers’ use and enforcement of these agreements. They include proposed legislation, regulatory undertakings, class action litigation, and state enforcement programs that seek reforms ranging from an end to the use of noncompetes with vulnerable workers to the outright prohibition of all forms of …

The Politics Of Pregnancy Accommodation, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

How can antidiscrimination law treat men and women “equally” when it comes to the issue of pregnancy? The development of U.S. law on pregnancy accommodation in the workplace tells a story of both legal disagreements about the meaning of “equality” and political disagreements about how best to achieve “equality” at work for women. Federal law has prohibited sex discrimination in the workplace for over five decades. Yet, due to long held gender stereotypes separating work and motherhood, the idea that prohibiting sex discrimination requires a duty to accommodate pregnant workers is a relatively recent phenomenon—and still only partially required by …

Finding Balance, Forging A Legacy: Harassers’ Rights And Employer Best Practices In The Era Of Metoo, Rachel Arnow-Richman

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article, prepared for the Annual Jack Pemberton Lecture on Workplace Justice, calls for the development of best practices for handling accused harassers in response to the MeToo movement. It contends that much of MeToo’s legacy will be determined by the voluntary choices of employers as they implement new policies and practices surrounding sexual harassment. It is therefore crucial that employers gain a better understanding of the nature and scope of sexual harassment and the risks of both over- and under-enforcement of anti-harassment norms. Through analysis of Harvey Weinstein’s final contract as Co-Chairman of the Weinstein Companies, the article juxtaposes …

Selling Out, Andrew B. Dawson

Articles

When bankruptcy policy competes with other federal and state regulatory policies, which should take priority? Bankruptcy law, provided it is used to save a struggling business from having to close its doors. Bankruptcy's supremacy, then, can preserve the debtor's going concern value, save jobs, and limit the collateral damage from a business failure. But should this bankruptcy supremacy apply only when the debtor is pursuing a traditional reorganization under chapter 11, or should it also apply when bankruptcy is used to bring about a quick sale of substantially all of the debtor's assets?

This Article addresses this question in the …

Saving Money On Health Insurance Just Got A Lot Easier . . . Or Did It?: The Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act And Its Impact On The Future Of Employee Health, Zachary Maciejewski

Indiana Law Journal

This Note addresses the growing use of employer-sponsored wellness programs in the American workplace and the concomitant harms and risks these programs impose on employee privacy and insurance costs. Specifically, this Note analyzes the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act (PEWPA)—a proposed law that would allow employers to require employees to disclose genetic information to qualify for an employer-sponsored wellness program (and the program’s associated insurance premium benefits). This Note ultimately argues that employees and employee advocacy groups must work to thwart PEWPA to preserve employee privacy in the face of mounting corporate pressure to alter the structure of employer-sponsored health …

Title Vii And The Unenvisaged Case: Is Anti-Lgbtq Discrimination Unlawful Sex Discrimination, Ronald Turner

Indiana Law Journal

As discussed herein, courts and individual judges recognizing or not finding actionable Title VII anti-LGBTQ14 claims have offered different rationales in support of their conflicting positions, including three justifications discussed in this project: (1) the meaning of Title VII’s “because of sex” prohibition, (2) the Supreme Court’s and circuit courts’ construction of the “because of sex” provision in the context of sex stereotyping and gender nonconformity discrimination as applied to the anti- LGBTQ question, and (3) associational discrimination theory. Claim-recognizing jurists have looked to Title VII’s text, Supreme Court and circuit court precedent, and the views of the Equal Employment …

Broader-Based And Sectoral Bargaining Proposals In Collective Bargaining Law Reform: A Historical Review, Sara Slinn

All Papers

Labour legislation regulating Canada’s private sector has incorporated forms of broader-based or sectoral certification and bargaining (BBB) in varying degrees for decades, particularly in British Columbia and Quebec. However, BBB had not been the subject of significant post-war labour law reform discussion until the 1990s. This decade saw a wave of interest in introducing BBB arise across several jurisdictions. Originating in Ontario in the late 1980s, it spread to British Columbia as a key part of labour law reform discussions in the early and late 1990s and became a minor issue in the federal labour law reform review process later …

O Brother Where Art Thou? The Struggles Of African American Men In The Global Economy Of The Information Age, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

As early as the late 1980’s, William Wilson argued that widespread economic transitions had altered the socioeconomic structure of American inner cities to the detriment of African Americans. Wilson identified declines in manufacturing work and its replacement with poorly compensated service sector work as driving racial segregation and leaving African Americans jobless, poor and alienated from American society. These transitions were particularly problematic for African American men since manufacturing work was their primary gateway to middle-class employment while African American women had already focused more on service work.

Since the initial exposition of Wilson’s theory of deindustrialization, Wilson’s framework of …

The Theorized Relationship Between Organizational (Non)Compliance With The United Nations Guiding Principles On Human Rights And Desired Employee Workplace Outcomes, Magda B. L. Donia, Salvador Herencia Carrasco, Sara L. Seck, Robert Mccorquodale, Sigalit Ronen

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite the presence of guiding legislation such as the United Nations Guiding Principles, respect for human rights is subject to the conscience of organizational actors. Given that some transnational corporations are more powerful than nation states, they play an important role in the economies in which they operate, often with far-reaching impact on the labor conditions and human rights protections within these countries. In the current global context, respect for human rights may be undermined when organizational decision-makers are tempted to ignore unethical practices due to considerations such as competition and short-term financial incentives. We propose that the higher standards …

Accommodating Pregnancy Five Years After Young V. Ups: Where We Are & Where We Should Go, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This Article will explore how pregnant employees fare when they are denied accommodations in the workplace that would have allowed them to work safely through their pregnancies. The two most commonly used legal avenues for pregnant plaintiffs are the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Successful cases under the ADA were rare until Congress expanded the ADA’s definition of disability in 2008. PDA claims became easier after the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc. This Article will analyze both the body of PDA cases decided since Young, and …

Essentializing Labor Before, During, And After The Coronavirus Pandemic, Deepa Das Acevedo

Faculty Articles

In the era of COVID-19, the term essential labor has become part of our daily lexicon. Between March and May 2020, essential labor was not just the only kind of paid labor occurring across most of the United States; it was also, many argued, the only thing preventing utter economic and humanitarian collapse. As a result of this sudden significance, legal scholars, workers’ advocates, and politicians have scrambled to articulate exactly what makes essential labor “essential.” Some commentators have also argued that the rise of essential labor as a conceptual category disrupts—or should disrupt—longstanding patterns in the way the nation …

Federal Enforcement Of Migrant Workers’ Labour Rights In Canada: A Research Report, Eric M Tucker, Sarah Marsden, Leah F. Vosko

Articles & Book Chapters

Although Canada’s migrant labour program is seen by some as a model of best practices, rights shortfalls and exploitation of workers are well documented. Through migration policy, federal authorities determine who can hire migrant workers, and the conditions under which they are employed, through the provision of work permits. Despite its authority over work permits, the federal government has historically had little to do with the regulation of working conditions. In 2015, the federal government introduced a new regulatory enforcement system - unique internationally for its attempt to enforce migrants’ workplace rights through federal migration policy - under which employers …

Freedom To Strike? What Freedom To Strike? Back-To-Work Legislation And The Freedom To Strike In Historical And Legal Perspective, Eric Tucker

Articles & Book Chapters

Defenders of labour rights rightly criticize the enactment of back-to-work (BTW) legislation ending otherwise lawful strikes as egregious interference with the freedom to strike, a freedom that in 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) held is constitutionally protected. Yet, often overlooked in discussions of the freedom to strike and the propensity of neoliberal governments to limit that freedom through exceptional measures is the baseline of restrictions built into the DNA of Canada’s version of the Wagner Act Model (WAM) of collective bargaining. The first goal of this essay, therefore, is to locate BTW measures in the longer history and …

How To Close The Gender Pay Gap: Transparency In Data Regarding Compensation Is The Key, J. Andrew Morgan

Connecticut Journal of International Law

This Article will look at the problem of unequal pay and will argue that transparency regarding compensation of men and women must be increased before any decision can be made as to why the gender pay gap exists. This Article proceeds in three parts. Part I provides a comprehensive discussion of existing equal pay laws in the United States that prohibit pay discrimination by sex and an analysis of the most up-to-date data on the current gender pay gap in the United States. It also examines theories as to why or why not there is a pay gap and how …

Union Rights For All: Towards Sectoral Bargaining In The United States, Kate Andrias

Book Chapters

American labor unions have collapsed. Having once bargained for more than a third of American workers, unions now represent only about 6 percent of the private sector workforce. In the wake of new statutory and constitutional limitations, their presence in the public sector is shrinking as well. As unions have declined, the United States has lost a key equalizing institution in politics and the economy, INdeed, economic inequality is at its highest point since the Gilded Age, when unionization rates were similarly low. With the weakening of unions, the United States has also lost a key mechanism for protecting against …

The Personal Responsibility Pandemic: Centering Solidarity In Public Health And Employment Law, Lindsay F. Wiley, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

Our nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has revealed fundamental flaws in our legal regimes governing both public health and employment. Public health orders have called on individuals to make sacrifices to protect society as a whole. Simple fairness dictates that the burdens should be shared as widely as the benefits. And the case for burden-sharing does not rest on fairness alone. Public health measures are more likely to succeed when those who are subject to them understand them as fair1 and when their cooperation is supported. 2 Predictably, our pandemic response has placed disproportionate burdens on those who are …

On Social Network Position In Employment Law: Conjectures For Charlie, Sachin Pandya

Faculty Articles and Papers

This paper, part of a Festschrift for Charles A. Sullivan, shows how arguments from two of Sullivan's papers on employment law would fare in a world in which employers can easily see a worker's or job applicant's relative position within a social or professional network. The paper then uses Sullivan's corpus of legal scholarship to illustrate some challenges to using social network evidence in employment law.

Three Essays On Entry Barriers And Incentives In Labor Markets, Samuel Ingram

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Occupational choice at the margin depends on both the incentives for entry and barriers to entry. The primary entry barrier determined by regulation is an occupational license. These are government laws determining the minimum qualifications to enter an occupation including education, testing, fees, and background checks. These regulations are currently enforced on 25% of the US labor market. The laws are crafted to protect consumers from unsafe goods and services but also have important consequences in labor market outcomes. The consequences may include fewer workers entering the profession, changes to which workers enter the profession, and altering competition, all of …

Explorations With Charlie Sullivan: Theorizing A Different Universe Of Employment Discrimination, William Corbett

All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Labor & Employment Law, W. Melvin Haas Iii, W. Jonathan Martin Ii, Alyssa K. Peters, Patricia-Anne Brownback

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys revisions to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.)1 and decisions interpreting Georgia law from June 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019,2 that affect labor and employment relations for Georgia employers.

1. Recent Legislation
2. Wrongful Termination
3. Respondeat Superior
4. Business Torts