Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Where Are We Going, And Where Should We Be In Ten Years?, Jonathan Barry Forman

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Erisa Misrepresentation And Nondisclosure Claims: Securities Litigation Under The Guise Of Erisa?, Clovis Trevino Bravo

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Safeguarding Employee Stock Ownership Plans: Insurance As Assurance, Lauren E. Berson, Nicholas L. Cushing

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Cruel Choice: Patients Forced To Decide Between Medical Marijuana And Employment, Ari Lieberman, Aaron Solomon

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

On The Authority Of The Two-Member Nlrb: Statutory Interpretation Approaches And Judicial Choices, Ronald Turner

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

Is the National Labor Relations Board statutorily empowered by and under Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act to issue decisions and orders when the membership of this five-member agency falls to two active members? This important question, now before the United States Supreme Court, has been considered by several federal courts of appeals in recent rulings addressing challenges to the two-member Board’s adjudicatory power and decision making authority. This essay focuses on the interpretive theories adopted, methodologies employed, and adjudicative choices made by the courts of appeals grappling with the Section 3(b) quorum issue, and argues that the …

Section 8(F) Prehire Agreements And The Exception To Majority Representation: Are Construction Workers Getting The Shaft?, Desiree Leclercq

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Second Circuit Takes A Second Look At The Non-Statutory Labor Exemption In Professional Sports: A Review Of Wood V. National Basketball Association, Caldwell V. American Basketball Association, National Basketball Association V. William, And Clarett V. National Football League, Walter T. Champion Jr.

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Abusing Abuse Of Discretion: Judicial Review Of Erisa Fiduciaries' Discretionary Decisions In Denial Of Benefits Cases, Christopher R. Stevenson

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Erisa: The Foundational Insufficiencies For Deferential Review In Employee Benefit Claims- Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. V. Glenn, Donald T. Bogan

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Who's Your Daddy? A Proposal For Paid Family Leave To Promote The Growth Of Families, Ashleigh Garvey, Claire Mitchell

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Lochners: The Untold History Of Substantive Due Process And The Idea Of Fundamental Rights, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To say that the Supreme Court's decision in Lochner v. New York is infamous is an understatement. Scholars remember Lochner for its strong right to contract and laissez-faire ideals--at least that is the conventional account of the case. Whether one concludes that Lochner leads to the judicial activism of Roe v. Wade, or foreshadows strong property rights, the standard account depends upon an important assumption: that the Lochner era's conception of fundamental rights parallels that of today. From that assumption, it appears to follow that Lochner symbolizes the grave political dangers of substantive due process, with its "repulsive connotation …

The Fair Labor Standards Act Exemptions And The Pharmaceuticals Industry: Are Sales Representatives Entitled To Overtime?, Steven I. Locke

Barry Law Review

This article discusses the battle in the courts as to whether highly compensated pharmaceutical sales representatives are entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, or whether they are excluded from such an entitlement under one or more of the Act’s “exemptions.” This article also conducts a review of the courts’ various conflicting positions and charts a course for addressing the issue before the Courts of Appeals and ultimately the Supreme Court.

Full Court Press: How Collective Bargaining Weakened The Nba's Competitive Edge In A Globalized Sport, Matthew Epps

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Clawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures In An Era Of Excessive Executive Compensation And Ponzi Schemes, Miriam A. Cherry, Jarrod Wong

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Months after insurance giant American International Group (AIG) faltered and the federal government provided financial assistance to keep the company afloat, executive compensation and bonus practices at the company came under scrutiny. Taxpayers balked when evidence came to light that large bonuses were being paid to executives—the same executives, in certain instances, who had been responsible for AIG's losses. The disconnect between AIG's huge losses and the multi-million dollar bonus payments is a striking example of "pay without performance," a phenomenon that Professors Jesse Fried and Lucian Bebchuk documented in their book of the same name. Responding to public …

Human Dignity And American Employment Law, David C. Yamada

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Question Jurisdiction And The Federal Arbitration Act, Richard A. Bales, Jamie L. Ireland

University of Colorado Law Review

The Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA") gives signatories to an arbitration agreement the right to have that agreement specifically enforced. The FAA does not, however, confer federal subject matter jurisdiction. Absent federal jurisdiction, a party seeking enforcement under the FAA must sue in state court. State courts, however, are far more likely than federal courts to use state contract law doctrines to avoid enforcing arbitration agreements. This has led parties seeking enforcement to look for other ways into federal court. Some federal courts have found jurisdiction over enforcement actions when the underlying dispute involves a federal question, such as when an …

Working For (Virtually) Minimum Wage: Applying The Fair Labor Standards Act In Cyberspace, Miriam A. Cherry

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

When Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA")' in 1938 to help relieve the downward spiral of wages in the Great Depression, America's workers commonly showed up to an employer's place of business, leaving little doubt if they were "working" and thus entitled to the statute's minimum wage. Times, and technologies, have changed. With modem computers, individuals often perform work on someone else's behalf while sitting at home, using not their employer's factory machinery, but rather a computer they purchased for themselves, as well as their own Internet connection. The work is often engaging and is far more …

Working Sick: Lessons Of Chronic Illness For Health Care Reform, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

Although chronic illness is generally associated with the elderly or disabled, chronic conditions are widespread among working-age adults and pose significant challenges for employer-based health care plans. Indeed, a recent study found that the number of working-age adults with a major chronic condition has grown by 25 percent over the past 10 years, to a total of nearly 58 million in 2006. Chronic illness imposes significant costs on workers, employers, and the overall economy. This population accounts for three-quarters of all personal medical spending in the United States, and a Milken Institute study recently estimated that lost workdays and lower …

Labor Injunctions In Bankruptcy: The Norris-Laguardia Firewall, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

This article considers whether federal courts, including bankruptcy courts, are authorized to issue injunctions in connection with various kinds of labor disputes arising after the filing of a petition in bankruptcy. The question takes on renewed importance in light of the record number of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in 2008, including filings by two of the three major American automakers, which are unionized. Given the increasing complexity of some of these notorious reorganizations, the likelihood of post-petition labor disputes appears to have correspondingly increased. In agreement with the few federal circuits that have considered the question, the article concludes that, …

Embracing Paradox: Three Problems The Nlrb Must Confront To Resist Further Erosion Of Labor Rights In The Expanding Immigrant Workplace, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the Supreme Court's 2002 Hoffman Plastic Compounds opinion, normally considered in terms of its social justice ramifications, from the different perspective of NLRB attorneys tasked with pursuing enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) under the conceptually (and practically) odd rubric that some NLRA employees (unauthorized workers) have no remedy under the NLRA. The article focuses on three problems evincing paradox. First, NLRB attorneys prosecuting cases involving these workers will probably gain knowledge of unlawful background immigration conduct. To what extent must the attorneys disclose it, and to whom? Second, NLRB attorneys are extraordinarily reliant on …

Religion In The Workplace: A Report On The Layers Of Relevant Law In The United States, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This article reports on the thick layers of law applicable to claims of religious exception to public and private employment workplaces in the United States. It reviews the Supreme Court's First and Fourteenth Amendment salient holdings, distinguishing public sector (government) workplaces, and the extent to which legislative bodies may and may not oblige private employers to "accommodate" religiously-asserted requirements. It also provides exhaustive footnote analyses of all major federal statutes (plus some representative state and local law variations) pertinent to the topic. Its principal conclusions are these: In the currently prevailing view of the U.S. Supreme Court, neither public nor …

A Matter Of Context: Social Framework Evidence In Employment Discrimination Class Actions, Melissa Hart, Paul M. Secunda

Publications

In litigation disputes over the certification of employment discrimination class actions, social scientists have come to play a central, yet controversial, role. Organizational behavioralists and social psychologists regularly testify for the plaintiffs, offering what is commonly referred to as social framework testimony. These experts explain the general social science research on the operation of stereotyping and bias in decision making and examine the challenged workplace to identify those policies and practices that research has shown will tend to increase and those that will tend to limit the likely impact of these factors. Defendants fight hard against the admission of social …

If It Is Broken, Then Fix It: Needed Reforms To Employment Discrimination Law: 2009 Annual Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Section On Employment Discrimination Law, Melissa Hart, Minna Kotkin, Roberto Corrada, Deborah Widiss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government's Control Of Its Workers' Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Publications

This Article identifies a key doctrinal shift in courts' treatment of public employees' First Amendment claims--a shift that imperils the public's interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental discipline of public employee speech on matters of public interest only when such speech undermined the government employer's interest in efficiently providing public services. In contrast, courts now increasingly focus on--and defer to--government's claim to control its workers' expression to protect its own speech.

More specifically, courts increasingly permit government …

Procedural Extremism: The Supreme Court's 2008-2009 Labor And Employment Cases, Melissa Hart

Publications

It has become nearly a commonplace to say that the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts is a court of “incrementalism.” The 2008 Term, however, featured several opinions that showcase the procedural extremism of the current conservative majority. In a series of sharply divided decisions, the Court re-shaped the law that governs the workplace - or more specifically the law that governs whether and how employees will be permitted access to the courts to litigate workplace disputes. At least as important as the Court’s changes to the substantive legal standards are the procedural hurdles the five …

Foreword Symposium: Having It Our Way: Women In Maryland's Workplace Circa 2027, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

On November 14, 2007, the University of Baltimore School of Law, the University of Maryland School of Law and the Women's Law Center of Maryland co-sponsored a symposium entitled "Having it Our Way: Women in Maryland's Workplace Circa 2027." The insightful collection of papers in this volume of the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class represents the work of employment law scholars, public policy specialists, and activists who presented on the current state of Maryland employment law and discussed Maryland's future. This distinguished group of experts and scholars present several themes: the hope of new …

Collateral Conflict: Employer Claims Of Rico Extortion Against Union Comprehensive Campaign , James J. Brudney

Faculty Scholarship

The article addresses an important yet largely overlooked issue of statutory meaning and labor relations policy: employers’ aggressive use of civil RICO actions to chill coordinated union efforts in the organizing and bargaining arenas. Over the past 30 years, facing volatile economic conditions and complex corporate relationships, unions have mounted coordinated campaigns (aimed at consumers, public officials, lenders, the media, and the public) in order to help organize new workers and to renew collective bargaining relationships. These often high-profile campaigns have at times been quite successful. In response, employers since the late 1980s have invoked civil RICO’s broad language to …

The Work/Family Balance: New York's Struggle To Harmonize Domestic And Employment Spheres, Kerry Anne Hoffman

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the challenges faced by American workers in balancing work and family responsibilities, highlighting the limitations of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and advocating for the implementation of paid family leave policies. It emphasizes the need for both federal and state-level reforms to address the financial and societal barriers that prevent employees, particularly low-income families and single parents, from utilizing unpaid leave. The note also explores the progress made by states like California, New Jersey, and Washington in enacting paid family leave legislation, while noting the ongoing political opposition to such measures in New York. It …

Do You Want To Be An Attorney Or A Mother - Arguing For A Feminist Solution To The Problem Of Double Blinds In Employment And Family Responsibilities Discrimination , Heather Bennett Stanford

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Worker Endangerment: The Need For Stronger Criminal Penalties For Violations Of The Occupational Safety And Health Act, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

A recent spate of construction deaths in New York City, similar incidents in Las Vegas, and scores of fatalities in recent years at mines and industrial facilities across the country have highlighted the need for greater commitment to worker safety in the United States and stronger penalties for violators of the worker safety laws. Approximately 6,000 workers are killed on the job each year1—and thousands more suffer grievous injuries—yet penalties for worker safety violations remain appallingly small, and criminal prosecutions are almost non-existent. In recent years, most of the criminal prosecutions for worker safety violations have been brought by the …