Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Exceeding Our Boundaries: Transnational Employment Law Practice And The Export Of American Lawyering Styles To The Global Worksite, Susan Bisom-Rapp

Faculty Scholarship

Until very recently, one almost never heard mention of international issues among labor and employment law practitioners in the United States. Conventional wisdom considers this practice area quintessentially local. Identifying a trend that unseats this taken-for-granted notion, the article details the birth of a new employment law sub-specialty: international labor and employment law. Some U.S. management attorneys, working with transnational legal teams comprised of lawyers from foreign firms, are beginning to coordinate multinational clients' employment law projects across multiple national jurisdictions. While the world's legal regimes that regulate labor markets are remarkably culturally specific, the formation of transnational networks of …

Affirmative Action In The Workplace: The Signficance Of Grutter?, Rebecca H. White

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court's decision last term in Grutter v. Bollinger answered important questions about the affirmative use of race in the educational context. I have been asked by the editors of the Kentucky Law Journal to explore the impact the decision is like to have on affirmative action in a different context--employment. Simply put, to what extent does Grutter affect a public or private employer's ability to voluntarily adopt an affirmative action plan in order to diversify its workplace? The short answer, of course, is that the Grutter decision does not directly apply to the affirmative use of race or …

Summary Of Desert Valley Construction And Employers Insurance Company Of Nevada V. Keith Hurley, 120 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 55, Kirk Reynolds

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Employers Desert Valley Construction and Employers Insurance Company of Nevada (EICN) appealed from an order denying their petition for judicial review of a workers’ compensation award in favor of respondent Keith Hurley.

Global Economic Forces And Individual Labor Rights: An Uneasy Coexistence, Alice De Jonge

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Workers’ Rights as Human Rights edited by James A. Gross. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. 272pp.

and

International Labor Standards: Globalization, Trade, and Public Policy edited by Robert J. Flanagan and William B. Gould IV. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003. 275pp.

Human Rights, Health, And Corporations, Gerald Montgomery

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Unfettered economic policies have had a notable effect on the state of human rights. With the increasing spread of transnational corporations (TNCs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a major role in setting ethical and moral standards for with the quality of life in the developing states where TNCs do business. Many TNCs are trying frantically to implement strategies that would alleviate labor injustices and corrupt practices in order to meet the standards argued for by NGOs.

Employment Law: Desert Palace, Inc. V. Costa: Returning To Title Vii's Core Principles By Eliminating The Direct Evidence Requirement In Mixed-Motive Cases, Daniel P. Johnson

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Minimum Wages, Inequality, And Globalization, T. H. Gindling, Katherine Terrell

Michigan Journal of International Law

The authors argue in this paper that the institution of the minimum wage is also an important factor in explaining changes in earnings inequality in Costa Rica, and that it can be an important factor in many developing countries. This study is a departure from the literature on institutions and development, which tends to analyze the impact of a more generally defined set of institutions using data on a number of countries. In this paper the authors analyze detailed changes in one institution in one country, using panel data over time. They argue that it is important to understand how …

Review Of Jennifer Klein, For All These Rights: Business, Labor And The Shaping Of America’S Public-Private Welfare State, Frank W. Munger

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Enforcing International Labor Standards: The Potential Of The Alien Tort Claims Act, Marisa A. Pagnattaro

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Professor Pagnattaro argues that courts should allow claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) to enforce international labor rights for alien workers. She begins by reviewing the history of the ATCA and the developing jurisprudence in the international labor context, including recent and pending cases involving employee ATCA claims against U.S. multinational corporations. After outlining what is necessary to assert an ATCA claim, including what is required to satisfy jurisdictional requirements, to state a claim under the law of nations, and to hold employers liable for violations of the law of nations, she details international foundations which can be …

Labor Standards On Cypriot Ships: Myth And Reality, Iliana Christodoulou-Varotsi, Dmitri A. Pentsov

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article offers a comprehensive comparative analysis of labor and social security standards on Cypriot and Greek ships. Potential cost savings for shipowners who register their ships in one country rather than the other may result from the absence of a given standard in the country of registration, or a lower or more flexible standard in that country than in the other. The authors conclude that the registration of ships in Cyprus does not provide overall advantages (in terms of "inferior" labor standards) over registration in Greece. Broadly speaking, shipowners may gain certain advantages by registering their ships in Cyprus …

Whistling In The Dark? Corporate Fraud, Whistleblowers, And The Implications Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act For Employment Law, Miriam A. Cherry

All Faculty Scholarship

Passed in 2002 in the wake of the accounting scandals that resulted in billions of dollars of lost value to shareholders, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has as its major goal the prevention of corporate corruption. This Article analyzes the impact of Section 806, the portion of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that provides protections for employees who report securities fraud, and describes the effect that Sarbanes-Oxley has on existing employment law. In addition, this Article contributes to the debate over the general effectiveness of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a topic of contention among both academics and press commentators. This Article argues that the Act …

Flores V. Southern Peru Copper Corporation: The Second Circuit Fails To Set A Threshold For Corporate Alien Tort Claim Act Liability, Lori D. Johnson

Scholarly Works

In Flores v. Southern Peru Copper Corporation, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, re-examined its Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) jurisprudence and assumed that a private domestic company acting in its private capacity could be liable to Peruvian nationals under the ATCA for a wide range of torts under international law, including violations of rights to “life and health.” Previous cases and other Circuits held that only a handful of egregious crimes, when committed by a private individual or corporation, can justify private liability under the ATCA. Rather than abiding by these interpretations, however, the court examined in depth …

Summary Of State Ex Rel. Dep’T Of Transp. V. Pub. Employees’ Retirement Sys., 120 Nev. Adv. Rep. 4, Justen Ericksen

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from a district court order granting a petition for writ of mandamus in favor Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada (PERS) directing state agency to pay PERS for back employee and employer contributions to the retirement system plus interest on behalf of five archeologists whom the agency treated as independent contractors rather than employees.

The "Inexorable Zero", Bert I. Huang

Faculty Scholarship

[F]ine tuning of the statistics could not have obscured the glaring absence of minority [long-distance] drivers .... [T]he company's inability to rebut the inference of discrimination came not from a misuse of statistics but from "the inexorable zero."

The Supreme Court first uttered the phrase "inexorable zero" a quarter-century ago in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, a landmark Title VII case. Ever since, this enigmatic name for a rule of inference has echoed across legal argument about segregation, discrimination, and affirmative action. Justice O'Connor, for instance, cited the "inexorable zero" in a major sex discrimination decision upholding an …

The Changing World Of Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

When I graduated from law school in 1985, there were no courses offered in employee benefits law. Nor, as near as I can recall, was ERISA ever discussed in any of the labor and employment classes I took. There was no mention in the introductory labor law course or in other classes about employment discrimination, union organizing, and employment arbitration. Now, in contrast, many law schools include a course on employee benefits and ERISA, and students hoping to work in the labor and employment area frequently find that ERISA work is plentiful, and traditional NLRA work is not. This, of …

Employment Protection For Domestic Violence Victims, Deborah A. Widiss, Wendy R. Weiser

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

International Trade And Workers’ Rights: Practical Tools For Reading Labor Rights Provisions Of Free Trade Agreements, Benjamin Holt, Michael Waller

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Women In The Workplace: Sexual Discrimination In Japan, Kelly Barrett

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Overcoming Resistance To Diversity In The Executive Suite: Grease, Grit, And The Corporate Tournament, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Once we open the corporate governance/human resources nexus to deeper inquiry, mutual scholarly interest in diversity and discrimination follows naturally. Firms have complex motives to take nondiscrimination and the promotion of diversity seriously. First, at least certain forms of discrimination are both unlawful and socially illegitimate and hence present threats of potential liability and injury to reputation. Second, human resources demands are such that attracting and motivating a diverse workforce is a competitive imperative. At the same time, however, offsetting economic forces may exist that favor subtle forms of discrimination and hostility to diversity, even if intentional and overt racial …

Employment Law: Reasonable Accomodation Under The Americans With Disabilities Act Vs. Employee Seniority Rights: Understanding The Real Conflict In U.S. Airways V. Barnett, Blake Sonne

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Malignant Indifference: The Wages Of Contemporary Child Labor In The United States, Seymour Moskowitz

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transnational Labor Mobilizing In Two Mexican Maquiladoras: The Struggle For Democratic Globalization, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

The struggle to improve workers' rights in Mexican maquiladoras and export processing zones elsewhere in the world is central to the politics of global economic integration. State-centered development is increasingly compromised by supranational institutions and trade agreements. Meanwhile, multinational corporations are relocating at an unprecedented rate to overseas locations. Export processing zones are notorious for poor working conditions and result in a "race to the bottom." The maquila sector in Mexico is a prime example of this phenomenon. This article uses two case studies to examine ways in which grassroots organizing has successfully resisted low wages and poor working conditions …

Book Review Of The Home Office And The Dangerous Trades: Regulating Occupational Disease In Victorian And Edwardian Britain, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Isolated And Politicized: The Nlrb's Uncertain Future The National Labor Relations Board In Comparative Context: Introduction, James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The National Labor Relations Board has managed to remain unusually detached or isolated in its decision-making even as it has come to operate in an openly partisan manner. There is a certain paradoxical quality to the coexistence of these two descriptors for Board conduct: isolation in agency performance ordinarily suggests a neutral separation from the political process whereas politicization implies a close connection to the elected branches. The explanation for this odd pairing involves a number of factors: some reflect political realities beyond the agency's ability to control, others relate to the structure of the NLRA, and still others are …

Neutrality Agreements And Card Check Recognition: Prospects For Changing Paradigms , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of neutrality agreements is a major development in labor-management relations in this country. The union movement's new approach to organizing displaces elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with negotiated agreements that provide for employers to remain neutral during an upcoming union campaign and (in most instances) for employees to decide if they wish to be represented through signing authorization cards rather than through a secret ballot election. Professor Brudney demonstrates the substantial role now being played by this contractually based approach to union organizing. He also explains why so many employers have agreed to neutrality …

A Different Kind Of Labor Law: Vagrancy Law And The Regulation Of Harvest Labor, 1913-1924, Ahmed A. White

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Muddles Over Outsourcing, Jagdish N. Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya, T.N. Srinivasan

Faculty Scholarship

In the early 1980s, “outsourcing” typically referred to the situation when firms expanded their purchases of manufactured physical inputs, like car companies that purchased window cranks and seat fabrics from outside the firm rather than making them inside. But in 2004, outsourcing took on a different meaning. It referred now to a specific segment of the growing international trade in services. This segment consists of arm’s-length, or what Bhagwati (1984) called “long-distance,” purchase of services abroad, principally, but not necessarily, via electronic mediums such as the telephone, fax and the Internet. Outsourcing can happen both though transactions by firms, like …

Is The Work-Family Conflict Pathological Or Normal Under The Fmla? The Potential Of The Fmla To Cover Ordinary Work-Family Conflicts, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides relief to workers, helping them in their struggle to meet the sometimes competing demands of work and family. There have been numerous attempts to expand legislation to cover more occasions where work and family obligations are in tension. This Essay will address one way that the courts may be expanding the Act’s application. It will investigate whether this modest interpretive expansion can be explained partially by society’s deeper understanding of the challenges of work-family balance over the ten years since the FMLA’s passage. Have we changed our general understanding of conflicts between …

Worker Ownership In Enron's Wake - Revisiting A Community Development Tactic, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

Worker ownership of business enterprise has long been touted as a vehicle for community economic development. Employee stock ownership plans in leveraged buy-outs, ESOPs and broad-based stock options in going concerns, and worker cooperatives in selected sectors - the experience has varied widely in goals, method, and outcome.

This Article reflects on the continued utility of worker ownership as a component of community development and calls attention to contrasts with conventional corporate governance and goals. Rather than an end in itself or just another way of doing business, worker ownership can be a vital element of a broader job creation, …

Will Employment Discrimination Class Actions Survive?, Melissa Hart

Publications

Recent years have witnessed increasing attacks on the appropriateness of certification of employment discrimination class action claims. The shift is often attributed to amendments to federal antidiscrimination laws in the Civil Rights Act of 1991. This paper argues, however, that the changes wrought by the 1991 amendments need not pose a barrier to resolution of employment discrimination claims through class litigation. The addition of compensatory and punitive damages and a jury-trial right may increase the level of scrutiny and perhaps the level of judicial involvement necessary in an employment discrimination class action. But they do not render such a class …