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Full-Text Articles in Law

Globalizing U.S. Employment Statutes Through Foreign Law Influence: Mexico’S Foreign Employer Provision And Recruited Mexican Workers, Kati Griffith Jan 2016

Globalizing U.S. Employment Statutes Through Foreign Law Influence: Mexico’S Foreign Employer Provision And Recruited Mexican Workers, Kati Griffith

Kati Griffith

It is widely acknowledged that Mexican nationals comprise a growing portion of the U.S. workforce, both as authorized and unauthorized workers. The focus on Mexican workers who are currently within the United States overshadows the fact that U.S. employers—typically with the help of their Mexico-based agents—are regularly recruiting and hiring low-wage Mexican workers in Mexico to work in the United States (hereinafter referred to as “recruited Mexican workers”). For instance, it was reported in January 2008 that “Iowa meatpackers actively recruited workers in Mexico” to have enough workers so that they could ship pork “from Iowa slaughterhouses to the rest …


Immigration Advocacy As Labor Advocacy, Kati Griffith Jan 2016

Immigration Advocacy As Labor Advocacy, Kati Griffith

Kati Griffith

[Excerpt] In this Article, we call for a comprehensive analytical framework that views immigration advocacy as labor advocacy. This framework has implications for the existing scholarship described above and for doctrinal analyses of legal cases relating to employees.’ immigration advocacy efforts.


Discovering “Immployment” Law: The Constitutionality Of Subfederal Immigration Regulation At Work, Kati Griffith Jan 2016

Discovering “Immployment” Law: The Constitutionality Of Subfederal Immigration Regulation At Work, Kati Griffith

Kati Griffith

[Excerpt] This Article develops two general preemption frameworks that feature federal employment law. It first devises and applies an implied-preemption analysis of subfederal employer-sanctions laws based on the preemptive force of FLSA and Title VII. In doing so, this Article reveals that the four subfederal employer-sanctions laws that have produced conflicting court decisions are unconstitutional because they stand as obstacles to fundamental policies underlying FLSA and Title VII. Specifically, these four subfederal laws, along with other subfederal laws that share their qualities, conflict with core federal employment policy goals of protecting employees from employment discrimination and encouraging valid employee-initiated complaints …


A Supreme Stretch: The Supremacy Clause In The Wake Of Irca And Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Kati Griffith Jan 2016

A Supreme Stretch: The Supremacy Clause In The Wake Of Irca And Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Kati Griffith

Kati Griffith

[Excerpt] Recently, the issues of immigration and immigration policy have garnered intense debate in the United States. Much of what Americans have discussed relates to border security, sanctions against employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, and temporary and permanent paths to legalization for undocumented workers. This debate often overshadows a meaningful discussion about the future of workplace rights for undocumented workers who, despite their undocumented status, currently work in the United States and at times suffer labor and employment law violations in their workplaces. Unfortunately, the national immigration debate has not incorporated this discussion. Moreover, the current proposed federal immigration …


Umass Boston – Brazilian Immigrant Center Partnership, Tim Sieber, C. Eduardo Siqueira, Natalicia Tracy Feb 2014

Umass Boston – Brazilian Immigrant Center Partnership, Tim Sieber, C. Eduardo Siqueira, Natalicia Tracy

Tim Sieber

The Brazilian Immigrant Center (BIC) does organizing, advocacy and training to reduce marginalization of Brazilian immigrants, promoting their engagement as workers & civic participants. A worker’s center, BIC supports and defends workers’ rights under current state & US labor laws. BIC helps workers mediate complaints with employers, and refers others for class action suits, or intervention by the Mass. Attorney General or US Dept of Labor. A special focus at present is organizing mostly women domestic workers, and BIC has a new Law and Policy Clinic, a Domestic Worker Mediation Program, and an Immigration Justice Project staffed by two full-time …


Migrant Labour In The United States: Working Beneath The Floor For Free Labour?, Maria Ontiveros Dec 2013

Migrant Labour In The United States: Working Beneath The Floor For Free Labour?, Maria Ontiveros

Maria L. Ontiveros

This chapter argues that the combination of United States employment and immigration laws create a system for the exploitation of immigrant workers that runs counter to the purpose of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US constitution. The chapter provides an overview to US employment and migration laws and then identifies specific problems raised for immigrant workers. The chapter then describes Thirteenth Amendment jurisprudence and shows how the current system of laws runs afoul of the amendments purpose.


Umass Boston – Brazilian Immigrant Center Partnership, Tim Sieber, C. Eduardo Siqueira, Natalicia Tracy May 2013

Umass Boston – Brazilian Immigrant Center Partnership, Tim Sieber, C. Eduardo Siqueira, Natalicia Tracy

Timothy Sieber

The Brazilian Immigrant Center (BIC) does organizing, advocacy and training to reduce marginalization of Brazilian immigrants, promoting their engagement as workers & civic participants. A worker’s center, BIC supports and defends workers’ rights under current state & US labor laws. BIC helps workers mediate complaints with employers, and refers others for class action suits, or intervention by the Mass. Attorney General or US Dept. of Labor. A special focus at present is organizing mostly women domestic workers, and BIC has a new Law and Policy Clinic, a Domestic Worker Mediation Program, and an Immigration Justice Project staffed by two full-time …


Social Protection Afforded To Irregular Migrant Workers: Thoughts On International Norms, The Southern African Development Community, Botswana And South Africa, Bruno Ps Van Eck, Felicia Snyman Mar 2013

Social Protection Afforded To Irregular Migrant Workers: Thoughts On International Norms, The Southern African Development Community, Botswana And South Africa, Bruno Ps Van Eck, Felicia Snyman

Bruno PS Van Eck

The majority of migrant workers target those countries in southern Africa that have stronger economies. Irregular migrants are in a particularly vulnerable position, and this article discusses the protection that this category of persons may expect to experience in the southern African region. The authors recommend that the broad notion of “social protection”, rather than the narrower concept “social security” should be emphasized. International, continental and regional instruments providing protection to irregular migrants are traversed and the constitutional and legislative frameworks in relation to social protection in Botswana and South Africa are compared. The article concludes that there are significant …


Workers' Compensation And Hoffman Plastic: Pandora's Undocumented Box, Oliver Beatty Dec 2010

Workers' Compensation And Hoffman Plastic: Pandora's Undocumented Box, Oliver Beatty

Oliver T Beatty

The focus of this Comment is whether Hoffman Plastic, which was decided in regard to unionization and back pay, is properly applied when its rationale is utilized in litigation across the country by employers to preclude workers' compensation payments to injured undocumented workers. This Comment examines the rationale and policy from courts across the nation in determining whether Hoffman Plastic belongs in workers' compensation cases, when such an application has serious consequences for workplace safety and state police power. Part I of this Comment discusses the historical background of federal immigration and labor statutes examined in the Hoffman Plastic decision. …


Female Immigrant Workers And The Law: Limits And Opportunities, Maria Ontiveros Dec 2006

Female Immigrant Workers And The Law: Limits And Opportunities, Maria Ontiveros

Maria L. Ontiveros

This paper explains the reasons that traditional United States labor and employment laws are incapable of effectively addressing the types of workplace problems confronting female immigrant workers. It critiques the protections supposedly offered by the free market, labor standards, antidiscrimination laws and collective bargaining. It argues that statutory exclusion, immigration issues, nonrecognition of injury, and cultural limitations thwart the effectiveness of traditional approaches. It then describes a variety of initiatives and approaches being taken at the domestic and international level that more effectively address these problems. These initiatives include the use of the Thirteenth Amendment and antitrafficking legislation, as well …