Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

The Other Side Of The Picket Line: Contract, Democracy, And Power In A Law School Classroom, Michael Fischl

Faculty Articles and Papers

his essay - from a forthcoming symposium on teaching from the left in the NYU Review of Law & Social Change - offers an account of the successful union organizing campaign among custodial and landscaping workers at the University of Miami during the 2005-06 academic year, focusing in particular on the role played by faculty during the course of the campaign. It examines a fractious debate generated by faculty who held classes off campus in order to support the striking workers and the author's own decision to put the question of whether to honor the picket line to a vote …

What Process Is Due In The Adjudication Of Erisa Claims?, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 811 (2007), Mark D. Debofsky

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rescue The Americans With Disabilities Act From Restrictive Interpretations: Alcoholism As An Illustration, Judith J. Johnson

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court has narrowed the doorway into the protected class for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) in virtually every employment case. Taking their cue from the Supreme Court, the lower courts have been concerned principally with who is "disabled" and thus protected by the ADA. The answer today is not many people. The courts generally have been so hostile to ADA plaintiffs that it is difficult now to find a case in which the plaintiff was able to prove that he was disabled. Congress contemplated that some impairments would always be disabling. The Supreme Court, however, …

Law Firms As Defendants: Family Responsibilities Discrimination In Legal Workplaces, Joan C. Williams, Stephanie Bornstein, Diana Reddy, Betsy A. Williams

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article analyzes how the growing trend of litigation alleging employment discrimination based on workers' family caregiving responsibilities applies to law firms and other legal employers. Our research has found at least thirty-three cases since 1990 in which employees of law firms or other legal employers--both attorneys and support staff--have sued their employers for family responsibilities discrimination (“FRD”). FRD is discrimination against employees based on their family caregiving responsibilities for newborns, young children, elderly parents, or ill spouses or partners. Here we analyze these cases, including the employee experiences that have prompted litigation and the legal theories on which the …

Public Sector Employee Bargaining: Contract Negotiations And Case Law, Andrew Douglas

Cleveland State Law Review

Between 1973 and 1980, across Ohio there were 428 public employee labor actions. In the face of such labor unrest, coupled with changing times and changing attitudes, the lawmakers of Ohio began to recognize the desperate need of the state's public employees to be granted the right to bargain collectively with their employers. It is my hope that after reading this Article, based upon an academically defensible presentation, you will draw the conclusion that collective bargaining for employees in the public sector is a good thing and should be protected at all costs in and by the law.

Public Law And Private Process: Toward An Incentivized Organizational Justice Model Of Equal Employment Quality For Caregivers, Rachel Arnow-Richman

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article considers the relationship between prescriptive law and voluntary employer behavior in redressing the structural exclusion of working caregivers. In the last decade, several courts interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act have held that employers are statutorily required to engage in an interactive process with workers to identify ways of accommodating their disabilities. In so doing, they have created procedural rights for workers that are distinguishable from and supplemental to the substantive right to reasonable accommodation afforded by the statute. This move resonates with developments in Title VII jurisprudence, such as the creation of an affirmative defense to harassment …

Cubewrap Contracts: The Rise Of Delayed Term, Standard Form Employment Agreements, Rachel Arnow-Richman

UF Law Faculty Publications

Modern companies increasingly use standard form agreements, such as arbitration and non-compete agreements, to “contractualize” discrete aspects of their workers’ obligations. Frequently such agreements provided to the worker after an initial oral agreement of employment has been reached, what the article refers to as “cubewrap” contracting practices. Courts and scholars have yet to develop a consistent contractual theory of the enforceability of these documents. In contrast, consumer contracts have been standardized for decades, and the problem of “terms in the box” contracts, in which key terms are similarly delayed, has been extensively debated. This article draws insights from the “terms …

The Changing Face Of Collective Representation: The Future Of Collective Bargaining, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Advocating For The Employment Rights Of Victims Of Domestic Violence And Sexual Assault, Deborah A. Widiss, Robin R. Runge

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Staying Above The Surface- Surface Bargaining Claims Under The National Labor Relations Act, Marc Mandelman, Kevin Manara

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bloggers Beware: A Cautionary Tale Of Blogging And The Doctrine Of At-Will Employment, Tracie Watson, Elisabeth Piro

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Common Sense About Common Claims, David G. Karro

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "No-Match" Letter Rule: A Mismatch Between The Department Of Homeland Security And The Social Security Administration In Worksite Immigration Law Enforcement, Michael Gibek, Joshua Shteierman

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Discharge Of Sexual Harassment Judgments In Bankruptcy Court: An Attempt To Right A "Grave Injustice", David L. Adamson

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Placing The Reality Of Employment Discrimination Cases In A Comparative Context, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Harassing “Girls” At The Hard Rock: Masculinities In Sexualized Environments, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

Masculinities theory explains that masculinity is constructed in relation to a dominant image of gender difference, ultimately defining itself simply as what “femininity” is not. In the workplace, masculinities comprise both a structure that reinforces the superiority of men over women, and a series of practices associated with masculine behavior (performed by men and women) that maintain men’s superior position over women at work, yet specific masculinities differ according to the type of workplace. This article applies masculinities theory to analyze whether Title VII should protect women employees in highly sexualized workplaces from sex- or gender-based hostile work environments, created …

Babes And Beefcake: Exclusive Hiring Arrangements And Sexy Dress Codes, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

Las Vegas casinos exclusively hire women to serve cocktails on the casino floor, dressing them in tight-fitting, sexy, uncomfortable costumes and high heels. The exclusive hiring of women as cocktail servers violates Title VII's prohibition against sex discrimination unless the employer can demonstrate that being a woman is a bona fide occupational qualification ("BFOQ") for the job of cocktail server. Sitting en banc, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided Jespersen v. Harrah's Operating Co., which concluded that sex-differentiated appearance and grooming codes are legal in jobs held by both men and women unless they impose unequal burdens on …

Outing Outcomes: An Empirical Study Of Confidential Employment Discrimination Settlements, Minna J. Kotkin

Washington and Lee Law Review

Recent empirical studies on outcomes in employment discrimination litigation all reach the same conclusion: Plaintifs have little chance of success. But these studies rely on summary judgment decisions and trial verdicts, gleaned from reported opinions, electronic docket entries, and data collected by the Administrative Office of the Courts, and they acknowledge that this is just "the tip of the iceberg." Until now, settlement outcomes, which account for 70% of case resolutions, have been rendered invisible because of confidential settlement agreements. Along with the "vanishing trial" syndrome, secret settlements have created an information vacuum, skewing the public policy discourse about employment …

Confronting "Unwelcomeness" From The Outside: Using Case Theory To Tell The Stories Of Sexually-Harassed Women, Margaret Moore Jackson

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article critiques the legal requirement that sexual harassment plaintiffs must prove the conduct was unwelcome, arguing that this element perpetuates cultural biases against women and undermines their ability to challenge discrimination. It proposes using case theory and storytelling to counter these biases, framing clients' stories in ways that preserve their dignity and challenge stereotypes.

From The Steelworkers' Trilogy To The Kentucky River Trifecta: Will The Nlrb's Definition Of Independent Judgment Trickle Down To Public Employee Labor Relations Law?, Jacqueline Clisham

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Legal Discrimination: How Indonesian Law Fails To Protect Domestic Workers, Andrea Hunwick

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Walmart's Discrimination Woes, Jeffrey Sussman

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Retaliatory Harassment: Sex And The Hostile Coworker As The Enforcer Of Workplace Norms, Rhonda Reaves

Journal Publications

This Article focuses on the legal treatment of retaliatory harassment claims. It argues that retaliatory harassment is an often misunderstood and underanalyzed concept in the law of workplace harassment. This Article seeks to distinguish the legal treatment of retaliatory harassment from sexual harassment. Part I of this Article describes the use of harassment as a method of enforcing workplace norms; it details how harassment is used not just to further a worker's own individual sexist (or racist) agenda, but how it is used to keep women (and minority groups) in subordinate positions. Part II describes the current legal frameworks for …

Fighting Discrimination While Fighting Litigation: A Tale Of Two Supreme Courts, Scott A. Moss

Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued an odd mix of pro-plaintiff and pro-defendant employment law rulings. It has disallowed harassment lawsuits against employers even with failed antiharassment efforts, construed statutes of limitations narrowly to bar suits about ongoing promotion and pay discrimination, and denied protection to public employee internal complaints. Yet the same Court has issued significant unanimous rulings easing discrimination plaintiffs' burdens of proof.

This jurisprudence is often miscast in simple pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant terms. The Court's duality traces to its inconsistent and unaware adoption of competing policy arguments:

Policy 1: Employees must try internal dispute resolution before suing--or …

The Centennial Shuffle: City Of Enid V. Public Employees Relations Board: How The Oklahoma Supreme Court Upheld A Century Of Population-Based Classifications While Foreshadowing Another Century Of Confusion Concerning The Laws That Govern Them, Kristopher Dale Jarvis

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Trial, Douglas O. Linder

Faculty Works

It was a warm spring Saturday in New York City, March 25, 1911. On the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building just off of Washington Square, employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory began putting away their work as the 4:45 p.m. quitting time approached. Most of the several hundred Triangle Shirtwaist employees were teenage girls. Most were recent immigrants. Many spoke only a little English. Just then somebody on the eighth floor shouted, Fire! Flames leapt from discarded rags between the first and second rows of cutting tables in the hundred-foot-by-hundred-foot floor. Triangle employee William Bernstein grabbed pails …

Finding Worth In The New Workplace: The Implications Of Comparable Worth's Reemergence In The Global Economy, Daniel N. Kuperstein

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Employment Discrimination Provisions Of The Americans With Disabilities Act: Implementation And Impact, Scott Burris, Kathryn Moss

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of disability. Since its passage in 1990, debate has raged about whether the statute is doing any good. A steady stream of narrowing court decisions has led some to declare the law a failure. This article reviews the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of Title I. Many studies find a decline in employment rates among the disabled in the wake of the ADA, but the evidence that these declines were caused by the ADA is weak. Title I protects people who require no more than a …

The Creative Necessity Defense, Free Speech, And California Sexual Harassment Law, Thomas D. Brierton, Peter Bowal

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Forty-Three And Counting: Eeoc's Challenges And Successes And Emerging Trends In The Employment Arena, Naomi C. Earp

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.