Law Commons^™

Labor Law As Ideology: Toward A New Historiography Of Collective Bargaining Law, Karl E. Klare

Karl E. Klare

This article discusses a newly emerging historiography of post-New Deal United States collective bargaining law. Critical labor law will be depicted primarily by highlighting its main lines of attack on traditional learning. Most contributions to the literature of collective bargaining law are overwhelmingly doctrinal and rule-focused in emphasis. They are written, explicitly or implicitly, from the perspective of beliefs and values about the social function of collective bargaining drawn or inferred from the stated purposes, the legislative history of and judicial glosses upon the major federal labor statutes. This literature takes as given and unquestioned the desirability of maintaining the …

The Quest For Industrial Democracy And The Struggle Against Racism: Perspectives From Labor Law And Civil Rights Law, Karl E. Klare

Karl E. Klare

This Article is occasioned by the state of crisis which the labor and civil rights movements have simultaneously entered. It attempts to develop new ways of understanding the historical origins of the present crises. My purpose is to contribute to the discussion of class and race in American life by exploring a series of parallels, convergences, and connections between labor law and civil rights law. The particular focus of the Article is on certain limitations of collective bargaining law and an instrument for achieving democracy in the workplace and upon certain limitations of civil rights law as a process for …

Management Prerogatives, Plant Closings, And The Nlra: A Response, Karl E. Klare

Karl E. Klare

No abstract provided.

The Labor-Management Cooperation Debate: A Workplace Democracy Perspective, Karl E. Klare

Karl E. Klare

Much contemporary debate in the field of industrial relations focuses on the wrong questions. Discussion is often framed in misleading terms or based upon unproductive assumptions. A prime example explored here is the current heated debate about whether we should replace "the adversary structure" of American labor relations with a "cooperative model." In my view we do not face such a choice. Rather, workplace democracy and economic prosperity alike require new forms of work organization combining adversary and participatory assumptions, institutions and practices. The challenge is to link the two approaches in ways that enhance the virtues and minimize the …

Rank-And-File Participation In Organizing At Home And Abroad, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] We know that we need labor law reform. But it is also clear that this is not all we need; nor can we expect to achieve legal reform simply by electing Democrats. That strategy did not work in 1978-79 or in 1993-94, and it will not work in the future. In the face of inevitably powerful and well-organized business opposition, even the most well-financed and articulate lobbying campaign for labor law reform can fail. What was missing in 1978-79 and in 1993-94 and is urgently needed now is the pressure of a massive social movement, mobilized to transform and …

Workers’ Rights: Rethinking Protective Labor Legislation, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper focuses on a few directions in which protective labor legislation might be expanded in the United States over the next decade and the implications of expansion in each area for labor markets. Specifically, it addresses the areas of hours of work, unjust dismissal, comparable worth, and plant closings. In each case, the discussion stresses the need to be explicit about how private markets have failed, the need for empirical evidence to test such market failure claims, the need for economic analysis of potential unintended side effects of policy changes, and the existing empirical estimates of the likely magnitudes …

Traditional Labor Law Scholarship & The Crisis Of Collective Bargaining Law: A Reply To Professor Finkin, Karl E. Klare

Karl E. Klare

No abstract provided.

Lost Opportunity: Concluding Thoughts On The Finkin Critique, Karl Klare

Karl E. Klare

No abstract provided.

Testing The Effects Of Striker Replacement And Employer Implementation Of Final Offers On Employer And Union Bargaining Power, Ellen Dannin

Ellen Dannin

Many sorts of quantitative and qualitative empirical research are regularly used to answer questions related to work and workplace issues. However, some issues involving human behavior may be difficult to capture using standard empirical methods. Common barriers include access to people or information; problems with accurate or honest reporting; behavior that occurs over long periods of time; cost; and ethical barriers as to research using human subjects.

Important information related to collective bargaining can be difficult to collect for all of these reasons. Participants in collective bargaining may not want outsiders present for all or critical parts of negotiations. They …

Testing The Effects Of Striker Replacement And Employer Implementation Of Final Offers On Employer And Union Bargaining Power, Ellen Dannin

Ellen Dannin

Many sorts of quantitative and qualitative empirical research are regularly used to answer questions related to work and workplace issues. However, some issues involving human behavior may be difficult to capture using standard empirical methods. Common barriers include access to people or information; problems with accurate or honest reporting; behavior that occurs over long periods of time; cost; and ethical barriers as to research using human subjects.

Important information related to collective bargaining can be difficult to collect for all of these reasons. Participants in collective bargaining may not want outsiders present for all or critical parts of negotiations. They …

Good Faith: Balancing The Right To Manage With The Right To Represent, Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus

Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus

No abstract provided.

[Review Of The Book Values And Assumptions In American Labor Law], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] Reading this book it is difficult not to think that the intent of the author was less to understand the origins and developments of the values and assumptions that gild the practice of labor law than it was to 'prove' that labor law in America is really capitalist law and thus it invalidates itself. This is not only circular reasoning, but it is unfortunate as well. For there is another book to be written that would analyze these questions through a serious and sustained reading in the history of industrial relations and then apply that knowledge to specific case …

Competitive Entertainment: Implications Of The Nfl Lockout Litigation For Sports, Theatre, Music, And Video Entertainment, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Henry H. Perritt, Jr.

The 2011 NFL lockout reveals profound changes in the labor and product markets for the entire entertainment industry, driven by a revolution in technology. This article explores the revolution in the professional sports, theatre, and movie-making industries and concludes that it is fragmenting production, blurring the boundaries between labor markets and product markets, and introducing new forms of competition. As a result, the labor exemptions to the antitrust laws, which featured prominently in the NFL controversy are becoming less relevant, shifting the law's policing of competition to antitrust rule-of-reason analysis, where counterpoises such as labor unions are inactive, and making …

Rethinking Bargaining Unit Determination: Labor Law And The Structure Of Collective Representation In A Changing Workplace, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

[Excerpt] Arguably the leading issue for current labor law research is whether the existing system of law based on the Wagner Act model can continue to be relevant and appropriate for the contemporary workplace. Changes in the environment of work during the over half-century since this model was developed have brought pressures for re-evaluation and adaptation of key elements of its structure. Criticism of this system has focused on a number of areas, including: the reliance on the formal grievance procedure and arbitration; the separation of the realms of collective bargaining and business decision making; the limitations on employee participation …

A War Against Organizing, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

[Excerpt] Unless Congress passes serious labor law reform with real penalties, only a small fraction of the workers who seek union representation will succeed. If recent trends continue, there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to effectively protect the right of private-sector workers to organize and collectively bargain. Our country cannot afford to make workers defer their rights and aspirations for union representation any longer.

Regulation Of The Work Performance Relationship: Independent Contractors, Labor Subcontractors, And Joint Control Over An Employment-Like Relationship, Marley S. Weiss

Marley S. Weiss

I. Introduction. II. Who is covered and who is excluded from the protective scope of labor law, and the legal consequences for those excluded as independent contractors or owners. III. Benefits and burdens of the “employment relationship” characterization compared to a contract for services. IV. Speculations about solutions to the work relationship problem.

The Right To Strike In Essential Services Under United States Labor Law, Marley S. Weiss

Marley S. Weiss

SUMMARY: I. Introduction. II. A Brief History of U.S. Collective Labor Relations Laws. III. The Structure of Labor-Management Relations in The U.S. IV. The Right to Strike. V. Private Sector “Essential Services” Provisions: LMRA National. VI. Conclusion.

Union Business Agents, Edwin Render

Edwin R. Render

This paper discusses some of the risks of violating criminal laws that union stewards and business agents encounter in connection with representing employees. It is not about RICO. The analysis is particularly focused on the types of crimes they might commit inadvertently in grievance meetings with management, when preparing and presenting cases in labor arbitrations and in representing and advising employees in matters such as worker’s compensation and unemployment compensation proceedings. The potential for criminal liability is discussed for business agents and union stewards in both the public and private sectors. While most business agents or stewards would not intentionally …

Rights Adjudication And Constitutional Pluralism In Germany And Europe, Alec Stone Sweet

Alec Stone Sweet

No abstract provided.

Competitive Entertainment: Implications Of The Nfl Lockout Litigation For Sports, Theatre, Music, And Video Entertainment, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Henry H. Perritt, Jr.

The 2011 NFL lockout reveals profound changes in the labor and product markets for the entire entertainment industry, driven by a revolution in technology. This article explores the revolution in the professional sports, theatre, and movie-making industries and concludes that it is fragmenting production, blurring the boundaries between labor markets and product markets, and introducing new forms of competition. As a result, the labor exemptions to the antitrust laws, which featured prominently in the NFL controversy are becoming less relevant, shifting the law's policing of competition to antitrust rule-of-reason analysis, where counterpoises such as labor unions are inactive, and making …