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History

Labor and Employment Law

University of Michigan Law School

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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Law

Workers' Comp And Contagious Disease: History And Future, Kate E. Britt Jan 2021

Workers' Comp And Contagious Disease: History And Future, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

Modern workers’ compensation schemes set out to provide financial relief to employees who contract an occupational disease during employment, like miners contracting black lung or contractors exposed to asbestos. Certain professions are understood to stand a particular risk of exposure to contagious diseases. Health-care workers interact with persons carrying contagious disease as a matter of course. What workers’ compensation does not cover are diseases which are so prevalent they are considered an “ordinary disease of life.” These diseases, like the common cold, influenza, or pneumonia, could be contracted by persons regardless of their profession, and workers’ compensation acts generally limit …


An American Approach To Social Democracy: The Forgotten Promise Of The Fair Labor Standards Act, Kate Andrias Jan 2019

An American Approach To Social Democracy: The Forgotten Promise Of The Fair Labor Standards Act, Kate Andrias

Articles

There is a growing consensus among scholars and public policy experts that fundamental labor law reform is necessary in order to reduce the nation’s growing wealth gap. According to conventional wisdom, however, a social democratic approach to labor relations is uniquely un-American—in deep conflict with our traditions and our governing legal regime. This Article calls into question that conventional account. It details a largely forgotten moment in American history: when the early Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established industry committees of unions, business associations, and the public to set wages on an industry-by-industry basis. Alongside the National Labor Relations Act, …


The New Labor Law, Kate Andrias Oct 2016

The New Labor Law, Kate Andrias

Articles

Labor law is failing. Disfigured by courts, attacked by employers, and rendered inapt by a global and fissured economy, many of labor law’s most ardent proponents have abandoned it altogether. And for good reason: the law that governs collective organization and bargaining among workers has little to offer those it purports to protect. Several scholars have suggested ways to breathe new life into the old regime, yet their proposals do not solve the basic problem. Labor law developed for the New Deal does not provide solutions to today’s inequities. But all hope is not lost. From the remnants of the …


The Moral Dimension Of Employment Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 2012

The Moral Dimension Of Employment Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Dispute resolution may be viewed from the perspective of economics or negotiation or contract law or game theory or even military strategy. In this Article, I should like to consider employment dispute resolution in particular from the perspective of morality. I do not necessarily mean "morality" in any religious sense. By "morality" here I mean a concern about the inherent dignity and worth of every human being and the way each one should be treated by society. Some persons who best exemplify that attitude would style themselves secular humanists. Nonetheless, over the centuries religions across the globe have played a …


Labor And Employment Law In Two Transitional Decades, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 2004

Labor And Employment Law In Two Transitional Decades, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Labor law became labor and employment law during the past several decades. The connotation of "labor law" is the regulation of union-management relations and that was the focus from the 1930s through the 1950s. In turn, voluntary collective bargaining was supposed to be the method best suited for setting the terms and conditions of employment for the nation's work force. Since the 1960s, however, the trend has been toward more governmental intervention to ensure nondiscrimination, safety and health, pensions and other fringe benefits, and so on. "Employment law" is now the term for the direct federal or state regulation of …


The Once And Future Labor Act: Myths And Realities, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 2002

The Once And Future Labor Act: Myths And Realities, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Other Publications

In this provocative article Professor St. Antoine laments, "I cannot believe that a private-sector workforce that is only one-tenth organized is ultimately good for labor, for management, or for the whole of our society." His speech to the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers outlines the original purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the reasons for the drastic decline in the percentage of the workforce that is unionized, and his suggestions for changes in the law that would encourage and promote collective bargaining.


The Regulation Of Labor Unions, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 1982

The Regulation Of Labor Unions, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

This year completes exactly a half century in the federalization and codification of American labor law. Before that the regulation of both the internal affairs and external relations of labor organizations was left largely to the individual states, usually through the application of common or nonstatutory law by the courts. One major exception was the railroad industry, whose patent importance to interstate commerce made it an acceptable subject for federal legislation like the Railway Labor Act.


The Role Of Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 1981

The Role Of Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Book Chapters

In the early New Deal days, workers' placards in the coal fields proudly proclaimed, "President Roosevelt wants you to join the union." If not literally true, that boast was well within the bounds of poetic license. After the brief interval of federal laissez-faire treatment of labor relations ushered in by the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935 declared the policy of the United States to be one of "encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining." Employers, but not unions, were forbidden to coerce or discriminate against employees because of their organizational activities. …


Review Of The Landrum-Griffin Act: Twenty Years Of Federal Protection Of Union Members' Rights, By J. R. Bellace And A. D. Berkowitz, Theodore J. St. Antoine Jan 1980

Review Of The Landrum-Griffin Act: Twenty Years Of Federal Protection Of Union Members' Rights, By J. R. Bellace And A. D. Berkowitz, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Reviews

In the innocent closing years of the 1950s, the American public fastened on union democracy as the most burning issue of the day. No other subject produced as much mail for Congress. The 229-201 count by which the Landrum-Griffin bill was substituted for the House Labor Committee's bill on labor-management reporting and disclosure constituted the largest total vote in the history of the House of Representatives. Significantly, however, that vote had little if any bearing on union members' rights. What distinguished Landrum-Griffin from the Committee's bill was its stiff new curbs on picketing and boycotts. As Senator John Kennedy's advisor, …