Labor and Employment Law | Open Access Articles

Summary Plan Descriptions After Amara, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 811 (2012), David Pratt

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Medical Provider Claims: Standing, Assignments, And Erisa Preemption, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 861 (2012), Kevin Wiggins

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Purpose Over Formality: Putting An End To The Catch-22 Preventing Workers From Speaking Up About Erisa Benefit Abuse, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 893 (2012), Lucas Walker

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Limiting The Affirmative Defense In The Digital Workplace , Daniel B. Garrie

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

From 2009 to 2011, there were more than 30,000 sexual harassment claims filed in the United States. The ubiquitous availability of digital technology devices has facilitated many instances of sexual harassment. Such sexual harassment occurs through unprovoked and offensive e-mails, messages posted on electronic bulletin boards, and other means available on the Internet. To date, courts remain silent on this issue. Should this type of sexual harassment be treated differently from physical sexual harassment? The surprising answer is yes. This Article suggests a new judicial framework for addressing sexual harassment perpetrated through digital communications. This framework accounts for the real-world …

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Before Wisconsin And Ohio: The Quiet Success Of Card-Check Organizing In The Public Sector, Rafael Gely, Timothy D. Chandler

Faculty Publications

Card-check laws, which have been unsuccessfully pursued by private-sector unions, mandate that employers recognize the union as the representative of employees on the basis of signed authorization cards without reliance on a representation election. Card check authorization benefits unions because it short circuits the usual organizing process by eliminating the union's need to further prove majority support in a secret ballot election.' But by doing so, it imposes costs on employers by restricting their efforts to erode union support through aggressive campaign tactics. Our paper seeks to better understand the development of these laws and their effects, and in that …

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Contract Theory And Some Realism About Employee Covenant Not To Compete Cases, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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Two Parts Of The Landscape Of Family In America: Maintaining Both Spousal And Domestic Partner Employee Benefits For Both Same-Sex And Different-Sex Couples, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

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The International Labour Organization And International Labor Standards, Roger Blanpain, Susan Bisom-Rapp, William R. Corbett, Hilary K. Josephs, Michael J. Zimmer

Faculty Scholarship

With the forces of globalization as a backdrop, this casebook develops labor and employment law in the context of the national laws of nine countries important to the global economy - the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, France, China, Japan and India. These national jurisdictions are highlighted by considering international labor standards promulgated by the International Labor Organization as well as the rulings and standards that emerge from two very different regional trade arrangements - the labor side accord to NAFTA and the European Union. Across all these different sources of law, this book considers the law of individual employment, …

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Efficiency-Wage Theory And Law Firm Pay, Dongyu "Eddie" Wang

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Every first-year law student knows that Big Law pays $160,000 a year. In fact, this number is likely the biggest incentive for applying in the minds of most law-school hopefuls. Taking New York City as an example, a quick look at Vault’s salary data reveals that, indeed, the large majority of New York firms with available salary data pay first-year associates exactly $160,000.

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Decoupling Employment, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

The protected class approach to employment discrimination has not solved the problem of discrimination or of a just distribution of resources. Not only do race and sex prejudice continue to exist, but material and subjective disadvantage continues to be strongly linked to race and sex. While our laws have made social changes, progress on those changes stalled in the 1980s. Some might even say that the protected class approach to discrimination has actually entrenched inequality more deeply into our social fabric.

This Article seeks a purpose-driven approach to finding solutions to the problems of discrimination, asking why it is that …

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Comments: The "Walkaway Shop": Long-Term Union Avoidance And Management Decisions To Open New Facilities As Lawful Conduct Under The National Labor Relations Act, Garrett Wozniak

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Battling Ptsd: Getting Reservists Suffering From Ptsd Back To Work Through Proposed Amendments To Userra And Va Disability Compensation Benefits, 45 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1201 (2012), Jeremiah Stephan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Lutheran And Yet Not Lutheran: A Church School Tests The Dilemma Of Church And State, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

A small Lutheran church school dispute became a nationally debated case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and v. EEOC, decided by the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012. At the heart of the Supreme Court case was a controversy over the so-called "ministerial exception" to federal anti-discrimination statutes such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Until the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hosanna-Tabor, finding that Cheryl Perich was not a minister within the exception, all circuit courts to rule on the issue had recognized a ministerial exception in order …

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Montgomery County V. Shropshire: Trying To Shoehorn Police Intradepartmental Disciplinary Files Into The Wrong Cabinet, Wayne Heavener

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

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Prescription For Change: Third Circuit Diagnoses Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives As Exempt From Overtime Pay In Smith V. Johnson & Johnson, Brooke Burns

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

The article presents information on the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing brand-name drugs and the issues related to pharmaceutical sales representative (PSR). The intensive sales training program, the exempt from overtime pay based on the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act and the economic justice and security of low income group are discussed. The court decision of Smith v. Johnson & Johnson, white-collar exemptions and employee misclassification are also discussed.

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The Need To Prevent Employers From Accessing Private Social Network Profiles, Brett Novick

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

In March 2012, social network privacy became a conversation topic after news reports of the story of Justin Bassett, a job applicant who withdrew his application in the middle of an interview when the interviewer asked him for the username and password of his private Facebook account. Although the issue has received much attention from the public and media, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has stated that it has no interest in prosecuting employers for asking for social networking account information. Fortunately, legislation that would make it illegal for employers to ask for the username and passwords for social networking …

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The Commonwealth Of Pennsylvania's Antiquated And Oft-Abused Occupation Tax: A Call For Abolition, Edmund W. Appleton

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

Under Pennsylvania law, counties, cities, boroughs, first-class townships, municipalities, and school districts can levy an occupation tax. An occupation tax taxes an individual based on the individual’s occupation, which, historically, was considered to be a form of transferable property. Not only is the occupation tax based on an outdated model of employment practices, but it is also a source of abuse and inequity. Consequently, the occupation tax should be abolished in favor of other more just taxation models.

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Sharpening The Blunt Blue Pencil: Renewing The Reasons For Covenants Not To Compete In North Carolina, Jon J. Lee, Kimberly Burke

Faculty Articles

Covenants not to compete are often included in modern employment contracts to prevent employees from working for competitors for a specified amount of time after termination of employment. Although such covenants were initially unenforceable at common law because they represented invalid restraints on trade, most jurisdictions today enforce covenants not to compete where such covenants are reasonable. Jurisdictions differ, however, in their treatment of unreasonable covenants, choosing from one of three approaches: the all-or nothing approach, which prohibits a court from striking out or modifying any part of a covenant; the "strict blue pencil doctrine," which allows a court to …

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Tensions In Rhetoric And Reality At The Intersection Of Work And Immigration, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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What Trademark Law Could Learn From Employment Law, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. Rev. 118 (2012), Robert A. Kearney

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

Trademark litigation is as unpredictable as it is expensive. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) considers as many as thirteen different factors when evaluating whether a trademark causes a “likelihood of confusion.” Federal courts use many of the same factors, though which factors are chosen differ by jurisdiction, and, do not necessarily overlap with the Board. Further, a party can litigate for a time before the Board, then in federal court, and then back before the Board. And, if this were not enough, the Board’s decisions have little if any preclusive effect on the court, and, a court’s decision …

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