Law Commons^™

Striker Replacements: A Law, Economics, And Negotiations Approach, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

In this article, we directly attack Professors Wachter and Cohen's assertion regarding the economic efficiency of the Mackay doctrine. Applying internal and external labor market analysis, we argue that the Mackay doctrine is economically inefficient because it allows employers to behave “opportunistically” with respect to employees that have made “firm-specific” investments in their employing firms. To remedy this problem we propose a new “negotiations approach,” the components of which are: (1) the statutory overruling of Mackay, and (2) the concomitant amendment of the NLRA to make the striker replacement issue a “mandatory” subject of collective bargaining.

The North American Agreement On Labor Cooperation: A New Frontier In North American Labor Relations, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

During the debate leading to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”), a great deal of concern focused on the effect that a trade agreement such as the NAFTA might have on workers' rights. As a condition for the ratification of the NAFTA, Congress provided that the treaty would not “enter into force until the three countries enact their own national agreement on labor cooperation.” In response to this concern, the three signatory countries negotiated the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (“NAALC” or “Labor Agreement”). The NAALC establishes a formal and elaborate procedure to settle complaints …

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 …