Law Commons^™

New Copyright Stories: Clearing The Way For Fair Wages And Equitable Working Conditions In American Theater And Other Creative Industries, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

We need some new intellectual property stories. By stories, I don’t mean entertaining fictions. I mean instead accounts or explanations that make sense of the world as it is lived by everyday people. Most of our relevant intellectual property laws were forged in the mid-twentieth century and have failed to keep pace with the transformations in creative and innovative practices of the twentyfirst. Being out-of-sync or failing to recognize broader existing stakeholders means laws are poorly aligned with on-the-ground realities and are out-of-touch with values and interests of the people laws serve. The Article at the center of this Symposium …

Trademark, Labor Law, And Antitrust, Oh My!, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

I am allergic to antitrust law, but after reading Hiba Hafiz’s recent article, I understand that my aversion is problematic. This paper combines an analysis of trademark law, labor law, and antitrust law to explain how employers exploit trademark law protections and defenses to control labor markets and underpay and under-protect workers. For most IP lawyers and professors, this article will open our minds to some collateral effects of trademark law’s consumer protection rationale on other areas of law with important consequences for economic and social policies.

Internalizing The Costs Of Employment Law Violations, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

David Weil’s new book on the fragmenting of internal labor markets in many American industries, The Fissured Workplace, should be read by all who wish to understand how the challenges to enforcing laws designed to protect American workers have become greater as the institutional structures and processes through which American businesses produce and deliver goods and services have continued to evolve. This book should be read not primarily because President Obama last year nominated Weil, a Boston University School of Management Professor, to head the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor or because the book includes several …

The Supreme Court's Labor And Employment Decisions: 2002-2003 Term, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

This article summarizes U.S. Supreme Court cases from the October 2002 term that related directly or indirectly to labor or employment law or have implications for labor and employment practitioners. Of particular interest are the University of Michigan affirmative action cases' and the Texas criminal sodomy case. ² Although not nominally "labor and employment" cases, these cases will profoundly affect labor and employment issues. Lawrence v. Texas has already altered the lenses through which society views homosexuality and altered public discourse related to homosexuality and same-sex relationships. ³ The reasoning of the Court shows how far issues of sexuality have …

Law And The Future Of Organized Labor In America, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper, prepared for "The Future of Organized Labor in America" symposium at Wayne State University Law School, examines two questions: 1) what are the implications of the decline of unions for the future of labor law, and 2) what are the implications of labor law for the decline of unions? After documenting the recent trends (decline in the private sector coupled with slight growth in the public sector), I argue that the change in the public-versus-private composition will lead unions to pursue legislative strategies that will further reduce the share of the private sector workforce in unions. A law …

A Framework For The Rejuvenation Of The American Labor Movement, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Archibald Cox: Teacher, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

Archie Cox is a teacher. He taught generations of law students at Harvard Law School and, more recently, at Boston University School of Law. He left the classroom on three occasions, reluctantly, when first President Truman, then President Kennedy, then President Nixon's Attorney General called Professor Cox to Washington to play a part on the national stage. In his first weeks as Watergate Special Prosecutor, Cox carried with him a stack of blue books, Labor Law examinations he still had to grade (p. 263). In the public eye, his straight-backed demeanor, his familiar crew cut, half-glasses, bow tie, and tweeds …

Efficiency And Labor Law, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I examine the economic efficiency of labor law. My claim is that much of labor law seems to be efficient-in a sense that will be made precise below.⁹ I approach this issue by examining the process by which labor law develops and some important areas of labor law doctrine. The central question addressed is whether the process by which labor law develops differs substantially from the common law process. I demonstrate that there are differences that have implications for the efficiency of labor law. But the differences do not seem to be so great as to …

Reconciling Collective Bargaining With Employee Supervision Of Management, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The realities of economic organization in modern industrial states pose a critical dilemma for all who care about democratic ideals. Technological developments and attendant complicated divisions of work have enabled these states to transform their citizens' standards of living; such developments have also, however, brought hierarchical economic organizations' that are unresponsive to the influence of most individual employees. A society that claims to be democratic cannot ignore this condition.² Enhancing individuals' control over their own lives requires institutions that will facilitate democratic decisionmaking about economic production as well as governmental authority.

This Article contributes to thought about such institutions …

Leveling The Road From Borg-Warner To First National Maintenance: The Scope Of Mandatory Bargaining, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court's most recent effort to distinguish nonmandatory bargaining topics, First National Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, ¹⁹ illustrates the Court's lack of clarity in this area and vindicates Cox's and Wellington's criticisms of the Court's approach in Borg-Warner. In First National Maintenance (F.N.M.), the Court held that an employer's decision "to shut down part of its business purely for economic reasons" was outside the scope of mandatory bargaining.²⁰ The Court could cite no evidence that Congress intended to prevent employee representatives from obtaining full effective bargaining over such decisions, nor did it articulate any general principle to …