Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Employment law (2)
- Canada (1)
- Default rules (1)
- Definition of employee (1)
- Dependent contractor (1)
-
- Dramatists Guild (1)
- Duty of loyalty (1)
- Emotional labor (1)
- Emotional management (1)
- Employee data (1)
- Employee governance (1)
- Employee participation (1)
- Employee privacy (1)
- Employment at-will (1)
- Employment discrimination (1)
- Fiduciary duty (1)
- Freakonomics (1)
- Gig economy (1)
- Incomplete contracts (1)
- Information privacy (1)
- Invisible labor (1)
- Italy (1)
- Labour law (1)
- On-demand economy (1)
- People analytics (1)
- Performance metrics (1)
- Personal autonomy (1)
- Platform economy (1)
- Progressive corporate law (1)
- Quantitative data (1)
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Law
Dependent Contractors' In The Gig Economy: A Comparative Approach, Miriam A. Cherry, Antonio Aloisi
Dependent Contractors' In The Gig Economy: A Comparative Approach, Miriam A. Cherry, Antonio Aloisi
All Faculty Scholarship
Lawsuits around the misclassification of workers in the on-demand economy have ballooned in the United States in recent years. That is because employee status is the gateway to many substantive legal rights. Inresponse, some commentators have proposed an in-between hybrid category just for for the gig economy. However, such an intermediate category is not new. In fact, it has existed in many countries for decades, producing successful results in some, and misadventure in others. We use a comparative approach to analyze the experiences of Canada, Italy, and Spain with the intermediate category. In Italy, the quasi-subordinate category created an opportunity …
The Next Iteration Of Progressive Corporate Law, Matthew T. Bodie
The Next Iteration Of Progressive Corporate Law, Matthew T. Bodie
All Faculty Scholarship
A wave of progressive corporate law scholarship in the late 1980s and early 1990s reimagined corporate law from the perspective of employees, consumers, and other stakeholders left behind by shareholder primacy. Almost thirty years later, it is time to revisit this literature and consider what progressive corporate law should be in the 21st Century. This essay argues for three changes: (1) a move to the theory of the firm as the underlying economic literature; (2) a focus on employees, rather than stakeholders more generally, and (3) an effort to change statutory and structural aspects of corporate law, such as board …
Workplace Freakonomics, Matthew T. Bodie
Workplace Freakonomics, Matthew T. Bodie
All Faculty Scholarship
Data analytics has revolutionized our economy, and employment is no exception. Sometimes called people analytics or HR analytics, the study of worker behavior and activity now includes the collection of massive amounts of data that is then crunched by algorithms looking for both expected and unexpected patterns. This work is akin to the "freakonomics" approach, which asks unusual questions and is prepared to find answers that may upset conventional wisdom. This paper explores the possibility of a "workplace freakonomics" approach to using big data in the workplace, and considers the legal and ethical ramifications for wide-ranging explorations of employee data.
The Best Way Out Is Always Through: Changing The Employment At-Will Default To Protect Personal Autonomy, Matthew T. Bodie
The Best Way Out Is Always Through: Changing The Employment At-Will Default To Protect Personal Autonomy, Matthew T. Bodie
All Faculty Scholarship
Employment at-will is the default rule of termination for the vast majority of American employment relationships. The rule creates a presumption—a strong one—that the contract for employment allows either party to terminate the contract at any point in time. Since its inception, this bright line rule has given way to carefully curated exceptions, primarily to protect against discrimination and retaliation. This Article proposes that state courts create a new exception to the at-will rule—or, perhaps more accurately, acknowledge an intricacy within the existing default. The personal-autonomy presumption would modify at-will to make clear that employers will not take any action …
Are Uber And Transportation Network Companies The Future Of Transportation (Law) And Employment (Law)?, Miriam A. Cherry
Are Uber And Transportation Network Companies The Future Of Transportation (Law) And Employment (Law)?, Miriam A. Cherry
All Faculty Scholarship
Transportation network companies (“TNCs”) such as Uber and Lyft manage ridesharing platforms that have increased efficiency and convenience for many passengers. These platforms, however, have also opened the door to many legal and regulatory issues pertaining to their business practices, employment structures, and transportation law and policy. This article provides a perspective on the economic, social, technical, and political aspects of TNCs in two steps, focusing on transportation and employment. First, it examines the future of TNCs in transportation, noting that TNCs could do more in terms of environmentalism to live up to the promise of the “sharing” economy. Second, …
People Analytics And Invisible Labor, Miriam A. Cherry
People Analytics And Invisible Labor, Miriam A. Cherry
All Faculty Scholarship
This article explores two trends in labor and employment law: people analytics and invisible labor. People analytics includes the practice of employers using quantitative data to make objective decisions regarding employees. Invisible labor includes work that is unrecognized because it involves emotional work, or that is hidden due to the intermediation of technology. The article then discusses the paradox of the two trends. As people analytics relies on data for decision-making, how can employers use data analytics if there are increasingly invisible components to work? The article considers solutions: should people analytics include components of hidden labor, explicitly recognize and …
Employment As Fiduciary Relationship, Matthew T. Bodie
Employment As Fiduciary Relationship, Matthew T. Bodie
All Faculty Scholarship
Under traditional agency law doctrine, employees are agents of their employers and owe an agent’s concomitant fiduciary duties. Employers, in turn, are merely principals and have no corresponding fiduciary duties. A new wave of thinking has unsettled this approach by concluding that only high-level employees have fiduciary responsibilities to their employers. Taking this controversy as a starting point, this Article reconceives the employment relationship as a mutual fiduciary relationship in which both employers and employees are fiduciaries of one another. Even though current law does not consider employers to be fiduciaries of their employees, employers have long had significant statutory …
Lessons From The Dramatists Guild For The Platform Economy, Matthew T. Bodie
Lessons From The Dramatists Guild For The Platform Economy, Matthew T. Bodie
All Faculty Scholarship
Are platform workers part of a firm or are they working as individual businesses? Are they providing their labor as part of a team, or do they hold on to individual capital throughout their transactions? This essay explores the question of employee versus independent contract through the specific examples of dramatists and screenwriters. Dramatists have chosen to conduct their work as separate artists; they maintain copyright over their work, and they retain control over its use. Screenwriters, on the other hand, work as part of a team; they hand over their copyright to the production company and cede control over …
The Sharing Economy And The Edges Of Contract Law: Comparing U.S. And U.K. Approaches, Miriam A. Cherry
The Sharing Economy And The Edges Of Contract Law: Comparing U.S. And U.K. Approaches, Miriam A. Cherry
All Faculty Scholarship
Technology and the rise of the on-demand or sharing economy have created new and diverse structures for how businesses operate and how work is conducted. Some of these matters are intermediated by contract, but in other situations, contract law may be unhelpful. For example, contract law does little to resolve worker classification problems on new platforms, such as ridesharing applications. Other forms of online work create even more complex problems, such as when work is disguised as an innocuous task like entering a code or answering a question, or when work is gamified and hidden as a leisure activity. Other …