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Full-Text Articles in Law

Nondomination And The Ambitions Of Employment Law, Aditi Bagchi Jan 2023

Nondomination And The Ambitions Of Employment Law, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

There is something missing in existing discussions of domination. While republican theory and critical legal theory each have contributed significantly to our understanding of domination, their focus on structural relationships and group subordination can leave out of focus the individual wrongs that make up domination, each of which is an unjustified exercise of power by one person over another. Private law (supported by private law theory) plays an important role in filling out our pictures of domination and the role of the state in limiting it. Private law allows us to recognize domination in wrongs by one person against another, …


Lowering The Stakes Of The Employment Contract, Aditi Bagchi Jan 2022

Lowering The Stakes Of The Employment Contract, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

Every country has to make hard choices about the distribution of entitlements. But employers control the entitlements that individual Americans enjoy to a far greater extent than those in other rich democracies. In this Essay, I argue that, in the absence of the political consensus necessary to deliver state solutions to political questions, employers here are assigned an exaggerated role in employees’ lives. Government incentives for and directives to employers have become a strategy of political deflection. The effect has been to raise the stakes of employment well beyond the scope of those terms and conditions that relate to attracting …


In The Zone: Work At The Intersection Of Trade And Migration, Jennifer Gordon Jan 2022

In The Zone: Work At The Intersection Of Trade And Migration, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Trade and immigration are generally described as separate dimensions of globalization. This Article challenges that story by focusing on settings where states and private actors are bringing the two together to achieve disparate economic and policy goals. In one set of cases analyzed here, governments in the Global South are seeking to increase trade through the use of migrant labor, attracting transnational firms to export manufacturing zones by importing lower-cost workers from other countries. In the other, policymakers in the Global North are seeking to decrease immigration through the use of trade by investing in export processing zones in migrant …


Beyond Title Vii: Rethinking Race, Ex-Offender Status, And Employment Discrimination In The Information Age, Kimani Paul-Emile Jan 2014

Beyond Title Vii: Rethinking Race, Ex-Offender Status, And Employment Discrimination In The Information Age, Kimani Paul-Emile

Faculty Scholarship

More than sixty-five million people in the United States—more than one in four adults—have had some involvement with the criminal justice system that will appear on a criminal history report. A rapidly expanding, for-profit industry has developed to collect these records and compile them into electronic databases, offering employers an inexpensive and readily accessible means of screening prospective employees. Nine out of ten employers now inquire into the criminal history of job candidates, systematically denying individuals with a criminal record any opportunity to gain work experience or build their job qualifications. This is so despite the fact that many individuals …


Envisioning Enforcement Of Freedom Of Association Standards In Corporate Codes: A Journey For Sinbad Or Sisyphus?, James J. Brudney Jan 2012

Envisioning Enforcement Of Freedom Of Association Standards In Corporate Codes: A Journey For Sinbad Or Sisyphus?, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Since the 1970’s, multinational corporations (MNCs) in large numbers have adopted codes of conduct declaring their commitment to workers’ rights. These codes, however, do not require adherence to specific labor regulations or standards in a global setting. The MNC record on voluntary compliance has been discouraging, especially in labor-intensive industries like apparel, shoes, and toys, where a global supply chain of contractors effectively controls labor conditions. The persistent gap between aspiration and achievement regarding corporate codes has led to disagreement over their meaning and value. MNCs hope to be judged on the basis of the self-regulatory systems they have established. …


Tensions In Rhetoric And Reality At The Intersection Of Work And Immigration, Jennifer Gordon Jan 2012

Tensions In Rhetoric And Reality At The Intersection Of Work And Immigration, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Gathering Moss: The Nrla's Resistance To Legislative Change , James J. Brudney Jan 2010

Gathering Moss: The Nrla's Resistance To Legislative Change , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

Why has the NLRA been so resistant to legislative change for more than 60 years? How was Congress able to enact two major labor relations laws within a 12-year period (1935 and 1947) but then unable to approve proposed reforms in the years since 1947? In an effort to answer these questions, the article closely examines contemporaneous newspaper accounts from the 1935 and 1947 legislative “successes” as well as from two more recent congressional “failures” in 1978 and 1992. The article’s examination proceeds based on an analytic framework borrowed from political scientist John Kingdon that posits a recurring interplay among …


Employment Discrimination In The Ethnically Diverse Workplace, Tanya K. Hernandez Jan 2010

Employment Discrimination In The Ethnically Diverse Workplace, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

Racial integration has long been the touchstone of racial progress in the workplace. But integration is only the beginning of the struggle to end racial discrimination. As workplaces become more diverse, they do not necessarily become less racially discriminatory. Diverse workplaces may be characterized by antagonism between people of different races. Interethnic discrimination may exist alongside the discrimination that has traditionally occurred between blacks and whites, i.e., non-white racial and ethnic groups may engage in disparate-treatment employment discrimination actionable under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Examples of interethnic discrimination occur among members of different ethnic subgroups, as …


Reluctance And Remorse: The Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing With American Employment Law Good Faith And Fair Dealing In The Individual Employment Relationship, James J. Brudney Jan 2010

Reluctance And Remorse: The Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing With American Employment Law Good Faith And Fair Dealing In The Individual Employment Relationship, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The covenant of good faith and fair dealing ("the covenant" or "Good Faith") is now an accepted feature of contractual relations in the United States. Essentially undeveloped until the 1960s, the obligation to act in good faith during contract performance and enforcement gained traction once it was written into the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and adopted by state legislatures. The covenant achieved broader recognition when included in 1981 as a new section in the Restatement (Second) of Contracts ("Restatement"). In the employment setting, however, the covenant has not fared nearly so well. The majority of states have declined to apply …


People Are Not Bananas: How Immigration Differs From Trade, Jennifer Gordon Jan 2010

People Are Not Bananas: How Immigration Differs From Trade, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Collateral Conflict: Employer Claims Of Rico Extortion Against Union Comprehensive Campaign , James J. Brudney Jan 2009

Collateral Conflict: Employer Claims Of Rico Extortion Against Union Comprehensive Campaign , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The article addresses an important yet largely overlooked issue of statutory meaning and labor relations policy: employers’ aggressive use of civil RICO actions to chill coordinated union efforts in the organizing and bargaining arenas. Over the past 30 years, facing volatile economic conditions and complex corporate relationships, unions have mounted coordinated campaigns (aimed at consumers, public officials, lenders, the media, and the public) in order to help organize new workers and to renew collective bargaining relationships. These often high-profile campaigns have at times been quite successful. In response, employers since the late 1980s have invoked civil RICO’s broad language to …


Private Injuries, Public Policies: Adjusting The Nlrb's Approach To Backpay Remedies Symposium: Whither The Board: The National Labor Relations Board At 75, James J. Brudney Jan 2009

Private Injuries, Public Policies: Adjusting The Nlrb's Approach To Backpay Remedies Symposium: Whither The Board: The National Labor Relations Board At 75, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

From fiscal years 2004 through 2008, over 135,000 employees received backpay through NLRB proceedings, mostly based on wrongful discharges. The Labor Board's backpay determination processes are often cumbersome and time-consuming to apply: they effectively invite employers to reduce and delay monetary recoveries and, not coincidentally, they undermine the remaining employees' interest in pursuing unionization and a collective bargaining relationship. The Article first asks to what extent the Board has statutory authority to adjust its approach toward backpay and mitigation. The answer, in short, is more than has previously been understood. Invoking the remedial authority found within section 10(c) and embraced …


Latino Inter-Ethnic Employment Discrimination And The Diversity Defense, Tanya K. Hernandez Jan 2007

Latino Inter-Ethnic Employment Discrimination And The Diversity Defense, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

With the growing racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. population and workforce, scholars have begun to address the ways in which coalition building across groups not only will continue to be necessary but also will become even more complex. Recent scholarship has focused on analyzing how best to promote effective coalition building. Thus far, scholars have not examined what that growing racial and ethnic diversity will mean in the context of individual racial and ethnic discrimination claims. What will antidiscrimination litigation look like when all the parties involved are non-White but nonetheless plaintiffs allege that a racial hierarchy exists …


Recrafting A Trojan Horse: Thoughts On Workplace Governance In Light Of Recent British Labor Law Developments , James J. Brudney Jan 2006

Recrafting A Trojan Horse: Thoughts On Workplace Governance In Light Of Recent British Labor Law Developments , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 2000, Britain established a statutory union recognition procedure applicable to all private and public employers with more than twenty workers.For a country with a history of voluntarism in labor-management relations, the creation of a legal mechanism by which unions could compel recognition from employers was a major change. The Labour Party government modeled its new approach to a considerable extent on our National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).3 Unions seeking statutory recognition must apply through a government agency; disagreements over proposed unit size or scope are to be resolved early by the agency; the union must show majority …


Transnational Labor Citizenship, Jennifer Gordon Jan 2006

Transnational Labor Citizenship, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Over one million new immigrants arrive in the United States each year. This spring, Americans saw several times that number pour into the streets, protesting proposed changes in U.S. immigration and guest work policies. As the signs they carried indicated, most migrants come to work, and it is in the workplace that the impact of large numbers of newcomers is most keenly felt. For those who see both the free movement of people and the preservation of decent working conditions as essential to social justice, this presents a seemingly unresolvable dilemma. In a situation of massive inequality among countries, to …


Welcome And Opening Remarks Work/Life Conflict In The Legal Profession, Jamie Amir, Sarah Lechner, Stuart L. Deutsch, Tanya Kateri Hernandez Jan 2006

Welcome And Opening Remarks Work/Life Conflict In The Legal Profession, Jamie Amir, Sarah Lechner, Stuart L. Deutsch, Tanya Kateri Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

At a symposium sponsored by the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, Professor Tanya Hernandez introduces the keynote speaker, Professor Joan Williams, a law professor at the American Law School, Washington College of Law in Washington,D.C. where she teaches Property, Women's Legal History, Feminist Jurist Prudence, and a Jurist Prudence seminar. The topic of the symposium is Work/Life Conflict in the Legal Profession.


Critical Race Feminism Empirical Research Project: Sexual Harassment & (And) The Internal Complaints Black Box, A Defining The Voices Of Critical Race Feminism, Tanya K. Hernandez Jan 2005

Critical Race Feminism Empirical Research Project: Sexual Harassment & (And) The Internal Complaints Black Box, A Defining The Voices Of Critical Race Feminism, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I present a Critial Race Feminism (CRF) empirical sexual harassment project I recently conducted as a case study of how empirical research can be valuable to the future of CRF. Part I introduces the sexual harassment study and discusses the empirical questions it sought to explore. Part II then presents the empirical research design and the general trends that the data provided. Part III analyzes the key findings of the study and how it contributes to an understanding of how the application of sexual harassment law implicates race. The statistical analysis of survey responses from a group …


Law, Lawyers, And Labor: The United Farm Workers' Legal Strategy In The 1960s And 1970s And The Role Of Law In Union Organizing Today , Jennifer Gordon Jan 2005

Law, Lawyers, And Labor: The United Farm Workers' Legal Strategy In The 1960s And 1970s And The Role Of Law In Union Organizing Today , Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

What does law offer labor? It depends. The specifics of the law in question are critical, as are the make-up and funding of the agency that is charged with implementing it and the economic strength, political clout, and strategic creativity of the unions and employers that it governs. Today's discussions of the NLRA from the union perspective are tinged with desperation about what law does for and to organizing-a desperation that is born of labor's sense that it has lost too many important battles before the NLRB and the courts over the interpretation of the NLRA. In despair, however, workers …


Neutrality Agreements And Card Check Recognition: Prospects For Changing Paradigms , James J. Brudney Jan 2004

Neutrality Agreements And Card Check Recognition: Prospects For Changing Paradigms , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of neutrality agreements is a major development in labor-management relations in this country. The union movement's new approach to organizing displaces elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with negotiated agreements that provide for employers to remain neutral during an upcoming union campaign and (in most instances) for employees to decide if they wish to be represented through signing authorization cards rather than through a secret ballot election. Professor Brudney demonstrates the substantial role now being played by this contractually based approach to union organizing. He also explains why so many employers have agreed to neutrality …


Isolated And Politicized: The Nlrb's Uncertain Future The National Labor Relations Board In Comparative Context: Introduction, James J. Brudney Jan 2004

Isolated And Politicized: The Nlrb's Uncertain Future The National Labor Relations Board In Comparative Context: Introduction, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The National Labor Relations Board has managed to remain unusually detached or isolated in its decision-making even as it has come to operate in an openly partisan manner. There is a certain paradoxical quality to the coexistence of these two descriptors for Board conduct: isolation in agency performance ordinarily suggests a neutral separation from the political process whereas politicization implies a close connection to the elected branches. The explanation for this odd pairing involves a number of factors: some reflect political realities beyond the agency's ability to control, others relate to the structure of the NLRA, and still others are …


Double Dipping: The Cross-Border Taxation Of Stock Options, Jeffrey M. Colon Jan 2003

Double Dipping: The Cross-Border Taxation Of Stock Options, Jeffrey M. Colon

Faculty Scholarship

Once awarded exclusively to upper management, stock options are now granted increasingly to rank-and-file employees and are becoming a greater component of employee compensation. The expanding use of stock options is undoubtedly due in part to the large increase in equity prices over the last twenty years. Further fueling the demand was the Internet start-up boom of the late 1990s, the spectacular financial success of many technology and computer companies, notably Microsoft and Oracle, and the well- publicized lucre acquired by their employees. The collapse of the initial public offerings market for Internet start-up companies at the dawn of the …


Job Segregation, Gender Blindness, And Employee Agency Symposium: Law, Labor, And Gender - New Perspectives On Labor And Gender, Tracy E. Higgins Jan 2002

Job Segregation, Gender Blindness, And Employee Agency Symposium: Law, Labor, And Gender - New Perspectives On Labor And Gender, Tracy E. Higgins

Faculty Scholarship

Almost forty years after the enactment of Title VII, women's struggle for equality in the workplace continues. Although Title VII was intended to "break[] down old patterns of segregation and hierarchy," the American workplace remains largely gender-segregated. Indeed, more than one-third of all women workers are employed in occupations in which the percentage of women exceeds 80%. Even in disciplines in which women have made gains, top status (and top paying) jobs remain male-dominated while the lower status jobs are filled by women. This pattern of gender segregation, in turn, accounts for a substantial part of the persistent wage gap …


Multiracial Matrix: The Role Of Race Ideology In The Enforcement Of Antidiscrimination Laws, A United States-Latin America Comparison, Tanya K. Hernandez Jan 2001

Multiracial Matrix: The Role Of Race Ideology In The Enforcement Of Antidiscrimination Laws, A United States-Latin America Comparison, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the role of race ideology in the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws. Professor Hernandez demonstrates the ways in which the U.S. race ideology is slowly starting to resemble the race ideology of much of Latin America. The evolving U.S. race ideology is a multiracial matrix made up of four precepts: (1) racial mixture and diverse racial demography will resolve racial problems; (2) fluid racial classification schemes are an indicator of racial progress and the colorblind abolition of racial classifications an indicator of absolute racial harmony; (3) racism is solely a phenomenon of aberrant racist individuals; and (4) focusing …


Designated Diffidence: District Court Judges On The Courts Of Appeals Papers Of General Interest, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear Jan 2001

Designated Diffidence: District Court Judges On The Courts Of Appeals Papers Of General Interest, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear

Faculty Scholarship

Since 1980, District CourtJudges, designated pursuant to federal statute, have helped decide over 75,000 court of appeals cases-nearly one of every five merits decisions. Although scholars and judges have warned that the presence of these visitors on appellate panels may undermine consistency, legitimacy, or collegiality, little empirical evidence exists related to such concerns. Working with an especially complete data set of labor law opinions, the authors found that district court visitors perform in a much more diffident fashion than their appellate colleagues. They contribute notably fewer majority opinions and dissents. In addition, their participations do not reflect their professional or …


Next Challenge In Sexual Harassment Reform: Racial Disparity, The Panel One: Gender, Race, And Sexuality: Historical Themes And Emerging Issues In Women's Rights Law, Tanya K. Hernandez Jan 2001

Next Challenge In Sexual Harassment Reform: Racial Disparity, The Panel One: Gender, Race, And Sexuality: Historical Themes And Emerging Issues In Women's Rights Law, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

In order to do my homework in discussing both a tribute to women's lawyering and activism and also discuss emerging issues, I am going to focus on sexual harassment.


Sexual Harassment And Racial Disparity: The Mutual Construction Of Gender And Race, Tanya K. Hernandez Jan 2000

Sexual Harassment And Racial Disparity: The Mutual Construction Of Gender And Race, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

For a number of years, commentators have proffered anecdotal evidence to suggest that women of color figure prominently as sexual harassment plaintiffs. Until recently, a systematic statistical analysis of women's experiences of sexual harassment by race was largely unavailable. For the first time, this Article comprehensively analyzes Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sexual harassment charge statistics, by looking at data from the last seven years along with Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw electronic reports of sexual harassment complaints for the last twenty years. What immediately becomes apparent in this statistical analysis of sexual harassment charges in the United States is the overrepresentation …


The Changing Complexion Of Workplace Law: Labor And Employment Decisions Of The Supreme Court's 1999-2000 Term , James J. Brudney Jan 2000

The Changing Complexion Of Workplace Law: Labor And Employment Decisions Of The Supreme Court's 1999-2000 Term , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

At the dawn of a new century of Supreme Court workplace law, it seems especially appropriate to offer some perspective on the recent and relatively recent past. Before addressing the seven cases involving labor and employment issues decided by the Supreme Court in the Term just ended, I want briefly to describe (in what I hope are not mechanical terms) how the Court's interests in labor and employment law have evolved from the start of the Burger Era in 1969 to the current, mature stage of the Rehnquist Court.


Congressional Accountability And Denial: Speech Or Debate Clause And Conflict Of Interest Challenges To Unionization Of Congressional Employees , James J. Brudney Jan 1999

Congressional Accountability And Denial: Speech Or Debate Clause And Conflict Of Interest Challenges To Unionization Of Congressional Employees , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

In 1995, Congress passed the Congressional Accountability Act, which applied federal workplace and anti-discrimination laws to Congress. Under the terms of the Act, Congress can prevent legislative staff from unionizing if the presence of organized employees would raise constitutional problems or present a conflict of interest. In this Article, Professor Brudney argues that these constitutional conflicts and issues do not pose sufficient concern to outweigh the workplace rights of congressional staff. Rather, he maintains that Congress, should either fulfill its obligations under the Act and allow legislative staff to unionize, or else enact a statute and explain the need for …


To Strike Or Not To Strike (Review Of Julius Getman, The Betrayal Of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, And Permanent Replacements), James J. Brudney Jan 1999

To Strike Or Not To Strike (Review Of Julius Getman, The Betrayal Of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, And Permanent Replacements), James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

This is a book review of Julius Getman, The Betrayal of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, and Permanent Replacements (1998)


Political Power Of Nuisance Law: Labor Picketing And The Courts In Modern England, 1871-Present, The , Rachel Vorspan Jan 1998

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 …