Law Commons^™

Arbitration - Dispute Involving Hazardous Working Conditions Is Within The Scope Of Broad Arbitration Clause Of A Collective Bargaining Agreement In Absence Of Forceful Indication Of Exclusionary Intent; Gateway Coal Co. V. United Mine Workers, Raymond T. Royko

Akron Law Review

The collapse of a ventilation structure substantially reduced the air flow into a mine operated 'by the Gateway Coal Co., seriously increasing the danger of accumulation of dust, flammable gas and possible explosion. Three assistant foremen, whose duties included checking and recording the airflow in the mine, made false entries in their logbooks that failed to disclose the reduced air flow. The three foremen were suspended, and criminal proceedings were instituted against them. While the charges remained pending, the Company, after receiving permission from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources, reinstated the foremen. Ruling that the continued presence of the …

Secondary Picketing Of A Neutral Employer, Nlrb V. Retail Store Employees Union, Frances C. Elliott

Akron Law Review

This note compares Justice Powell's reasoning in Safeco with the rationale of Tree Fruits and concludes that although Justice Powell was correct in limiting the Tree Fruits principles, he may have created a more substantial problem for future courts attempting to apply the Safeco principles in light of Tree Fruits. This note will explore the constitutional ramifications of the Sajeco decision and of the Labor Act itself as interpreted by Justice Powell and conclude that the legislative history is clear in its mandate that all secondary picketing is violative per se of the Labor Act. To illustrate the difficulties which …

Coercive Conduct And Evidentiary Hearings; Atr Wire And Cable Co. V. Nlrb, Patricia A. Mcintyre

Akron Law Review

Traditionally, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has closely adhered to this strict standard.' It has done so in compliance with one of the foremost policies of the Act - the alleviation of labor unrest by expediently certifying bargaining units. ATR Wire and Cable Co. v. NLRB, "I however, represents the current willingness of the Sixth Circuit to de-emphasize the importance of expediently certifying bargaining representatives. First, the circuit will not hesitate to remand a case with direction to the NLRB to conduct an evidentiary hearing when it determines that the Board adopted the Regional Director's recommendation to certify …

Public Sector Collectice Bargaining In Ohio: Before And After Senate Bill No. 133, Steven B. Chesler, Shawn E. Smith

Akron Law Review

When 1983 ushered in a new administration more sensitive to the glaring absence of such legislation, the passage of a comprehensive public employees' collective bargaining law was clearly imminent. This article will examine the inadequacies of Ohio's law prior to the enactment of Senate Bill No. 133; summarize the provisions of this new statute; and note its impact on public employees and their employee organizations.

Convergence In Industrial Relations Institutions: The Emerging Anglo-American Model?, Alexander Colvin, Owen Darbishire

Alexander Colvin

At the outset of the Thatcher/Reagan era, the employment and labor law systems across six Anglo- American countries could be divided into three pairings: the Wagner Act model of the United States and Canada; the Voluntarist system of collective bargaining and strong unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland; and the highly centralized, legalistic Award systems of Australia and New Zealand. The authors argue that there has been growing convergence in two major areas: First, of labor law toward a private ordering of employment relations in which terms and conditions of work and employment are primarily determined at the level …

Conciliare Vita E Lavoro. Verso Un Welfare Plurale, Michele Faioli

Michele Faioli

La ricerca è volta a analizzare gli schemi di welfare privato nella dinamica della conciliazione vita/lavoro, mettendo in rilievo alcune inefficienze del sistema italiano, a livello pubblico nazionale e regionale. Anche mediante la comparazione con altri paesi europei, il team di ricerca propone la costituzione di un fondo bilaterale nazionale per l'erogazione di welfare privato in attuazione di modelli di conciliazione vita/lavoro (cd. FOPAC)

Democracy In The Private Sector: The Rights Of Shareholders And Union Members, Michael Goldberg

Michael J Goldberg

In the years since Enron, there has been a lively debate over the value of shareholder democracy as a means to improve corporate performance and reduce the likelihood of future Enrons or Lehman Brothers. That debate has been enriched by comparative scholarship looking at corporate governance abroad, and comparing corporate governance with public government. This Article explores a different comparison, between corporations and their sometime adversaries across bargaining tables and picket lines – labor unions. More specifically, this article compares the regulation of corporate governance and the regulation of the internal affairs of unions, and the rights of shareholders and …

English Labor Law - The 1984 Trade Union Immunities Act And Its Effect On Unions' Legal Status, Bret J. Pangborn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Roundtable On Comparative Labor Relations Law: The Law And Measures Affecting Workers In The Context Of Voluntary Plant Closings And Workforce Reductions, Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Work, Study, Organize!: Why The Northwestern University Football Players Are Employees Under The National Labor Relations Act, César F. Rosado Marzán, Alex Tillett-Saks

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

This article analyzes the first case of college athlete unionization under the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") that has reached the National Labor Relations Board – that of the Northwestern University football players. We reanalyze the case and concur with Region 13 of the NLRB, which determined that these college athletes are employees under the NLRA. However, we also go beyond Region 13's decision and argue that the walk-on players, or those football players who do not receive scholarships, may also be employees under the NLRA.

The grant-in-aid football players of Northwestern University meet the three rules normally used to …

Harris V. Quinn: What We Talk About When We Talk About Right-To-Work Laws, Michael J. Yelnosky

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Cowboy Code Meets The Smash Mouth Truth: Meditations On Worker Incivility, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

This symposium essay argues that workers must face up and wake up to the emerging real world of perpetual employment vulnerability. Clinging to the faith that those who govern us will abide by simple moral codes simply will not do in this world. Workers must resist forces promoting vulnerability and internalize a steely and clear-eyed ethic of self-defense in response to the smash mouth truth of this challenging new environment. Workers and dissidents must not shrink when their frank opposition to the status quo is cabined and marginalized as “incivility.” The law — and I focus in the essay on …

A Signal Or A Silo? Title Vii's Unexpected Hegemony, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

Title VII’s domination of employment discrimination law today was not inevitable. Indeed, when Title VII was initially enacted, its supporters viewed it as weak and flawed. They first sought to strengthen and improve the law by disseminating equal employment enforcement throughout the federal government. Only in the late 1970s did they instead favor consolidating enforcement under Title VII. Yet to labor historians and legal scholars, Title VII’s triumphs came at a steep cost to unions. They write wistfully of an alternative regime that would have better harmonized antidiscrimination with labor law’s recognition of workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively …

Income Inequality And Corporate Structure, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

Efforts to address income inequality generally focus on wealth redistribution through taxation and government benefits. But these efforts do not attack the core problem -- the unfair distribution of wealth at the firm level. This essay, a contribution to the "Inequality, Opportunity, and the Law of the Workplace" symposium, argues that workers need power within their firms to stake their claims to larger slices of the corporate pie. Even though the current law of the workplace does provide regulatory support for workers, it fails to change internal firm governance. Policymakers who want to take on income inequality as a structural …

Progressive Legal Thought, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

A widely accepted model of American legal history is that "classical" legal thought, which dominated much of the nineteenth century, was displaced by "progressive" legal thought, which survived through the New Deal and in some form to this day. Within its domain, this was a revolution nearly on a par with Copernicus or Newton. This paradigm has been adopted by both progressive liberals who defend this revolution and by classical liberals who lament it.

Classical legal thought is generally identified with efforts to systematize legal rules along lines that had become familiar in the natural sciences. This methodology involved not …

What Is Even More Troubling About The "Tortification" Of Employment Discrimination, Alex B. Long

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Progressive Legal Thought, Herbert Hovenkamp

Herbert Hovenkamp

A widely accepted model of American legal history is that classical legal thought, which dominated much of the nineteenth century, was displaced by progressive legal thought, which survived through the New Deal and in some form to this day. Within its domain, this was a revolution nearly on a par with Copernicus or Newton. This paradigm has been adopted by both progressive liberals who defend this revolution and by classical liberals who lament it. Classical legal thought is generally identified with efforts to systematize legal rules along lines that had become familiar in the natural sciences. This methodology involved not …

Labor’S Divided Ranks: Privilege And The United Front Ideology , Marion Crain, Ken Matheny

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

A European Solution To America’S Basketball Problem: Reforming Amateur Basketball In The United States, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin, Joshua Lee

Jaimie K. McFarlin

The system of amateur and collegiate basketball in America is flawed, as every year, thousands of young men and women pursue their basketball dreams under the shadow of a multi-million dollar, predatory business model. Integral to telling the history of the NCAA and AAU organizations are recruiting horror stories and other examples of young talents who were taken advantage of by unscrupulous actors, both of which continue today. The commercialization and professionalization of amateur basketball has fed an ecosystem of exploitation in which private actors and institutions capitalize on the American mantra of "amateurism." The European system of amateur athletics …

Nlrb And Social Media, Robert Sprague

Robert Sprague

Focus: (1) when do employee social media posts constitute concerted activities protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act?; and (2) when do employers' social media policies restrict protected concerted activities?

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 …

Do You Believe He Can Fly? Royce White And Reasonable Accommodations Under The Americans With Disabilities Act For Nba Players With Anxiety Disorder And Fear Of Flying, Michael A. Mccann

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article examines the legal ramifications of Royce White, a basketball player with general anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, playing in the NBA. White's conditions cause him to have a fear of flying, thus making it difficult to play in the NBA. This subject is without precedent in sports law and, because of the unique aspects of an NBA playing career, lacks clear analogy to other employment circumstances. This dispute also illuminates broader legal and policy issues in the relationship between employment and mental illness. This Article argues that White would likely fail in a lawsuit against an NBA …

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 …

Trilogy Redux: Using Arbitration To Rebuild The Labor Movement, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

This Article analyzes the possibility of creating a program to provide representation to workers bound to arbitrate their legal disputes with their employers, while at the same time building a movement to challenge the practice of compulsory arbitration and its impact on workers' rights. First, I briefly review the Supreme Court's recent arbitration jurisprudence and its impact on workers, with a particular focus on the limitations on class actions. Then I move to a discussion of the advantages and challenges to the creation of such a program. Finally, I examine some alternative visions of what such a program might look …

Riding The Wave: Uplifting Labor Organizations Through Immigration Reform, Jayesh Rathod

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In recent years, labor unions in the United States have embraced the immigrants’ rights movement, cognizant that the very future of organized labor depends on its ability to attract immigrant workers and integrate them into union ranks. At the same time, the immigrants’ rights movement has been lauded for its successful organizing models, often drawing upon the vitality and ingenuity of immigrant-based worker centers, which themselves have emerged as alternatives to traditional labor unions. And while the labor and immigrants’ rights movements have engaged in some fruitful collaborations, their mutual support has failed to radically reshape the trajectory of either …

Table Of Mimetic Influences Related To Steve Charnovitz, “What The World Trade Organization Learned From The Ilo,” In Adelle Blackett & Anne Trebilcock Eds., Research Handbook On Transnational Labour Law (Edward Elgar, Forthcoming 2015), Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This table shows how the features of the ILO complaint procedures originating in 1919 became a model for the dispute settlement procedures written into the Charter of the International Trade Organization (ITO) in 1948 and the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the World Trade Organization.

Workers Disarmed: The Campaign Against Mass Picketing And The Dilemma Of Liberal Labor Rights, Ahmed A. White

Publications

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, mass picketing, characterized by large numbers of workers congregating in common protest at or near their employers' establishments, emerged as a crucial weapon in a historic campaign by American workers to realize basic labor rights and build an enduring labor movement in the face of strident resistance from a powerful business community. So potent a weapon did mass picketing prove that these business interests, aided by allies at all levels of government, moved quickly to ban the tactic. From the real-world complexities of labor conflict, this coalition forged a simplistic, analytically dubious, but …

Employer Retaliation Policies And The Retaliation Catch-22, Alex B. Long

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

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.

Lessons From The Nba Lockout: Union Democracy, Public Support, And The Folly Of The National Basketball Players Association, Matthew J. Parlow

Matthew Parlow