Law Commons^™

The Supreme Court Takes One Step Forward And The Nlrb Takes One Step Backward: Redefining Constructive Concerted Activities, Christina A. Karcher

Vanderbilt Law Review

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or the Act) governs the relationship between employers and employees in the United States. Specifically, section 7 of the Act 3 defines the basic rights of employees and section 8(a)4 defines employer unfair labor practices. Section 8(a)(1) generally proscribes employers from interfering with employees in the exercise of section 7 rights.' Thus,many unfair labor practice cases turn on whether section 7 of the Act protects the employee activity. Section 7 protects "concerted activities" engaged in "for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."' Courts frequently struggle to determine whether given …

Participatory Management Under Sections 2(5) And 8(A) (2) Of The National Labor Relations Act, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that participatory management programs initiated by the employer in nonunion settings should be permissible under the NLRA when they do not restrict the freedom of employees to choose their own bargaining representative. Section I describes the major currents of participatory management theory. Section II explores the restrictive interpretation the National Labor Relations Board (Board) and the courts have traditionally given those sections of the NLRA applicable to participatory management programs. Section III describes the increasingly permissive approach taken by some courts, and to a lesser extent by the Board, in applying the NLRA to participatory management settings. …

The Wagner Act: Labor Law's Signal Event, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

There's no fun in stating the obvious. Sophisticated professionals bestow few kudos on those who declaim the conventional wisdom. Even so, one would have to be far more perverse than I, in this fiftieth anniversary year of the National Labor Relations Act, to suggest that the Wagner Act, wasn't the most important (and at the time of it- passage the most controversial) development in the last half-century of labor law.

Federal Regulation Of The Workplace In The Next Half Century, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Even the general circulation press, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times to Business Week, has taken to examining the current malaise of the labor movement and the increased emphasis upon ensuring the safety, health, and economic security of employees through direct governmental regulation rather than through collective bargaining. What accounts for this upsurge of scholarly and popular interest in labor relations and labor law? There are undoubtedly multiple causes but I should like to focus on a couple of reasons that seem preeminent to me.

Protecting A Union Member's Right To Resign-Resolution Of The Conflict Between Dalmo Victor And Rockford-Beloit, Laura A. Norman

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Recent Development contends that a union restriction on a member's right to resign constitutes an unfair labor practice under section 8(b)(1)(A). Part II of this Recent Development focuses on judicial and Board treatment of the inherent conflict between an employee's section 7 right to refrain from collective activity and a union's authority to regulate internal affairs.

Part III examines three recent decisions addressing a union's authority to restrict a member's right to resign. Finally, part IV suggests that the Supreme Court should apply the Scofield v. NLRB three-part test to union rules restricting resignation. Part IV also asserts that …