Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Menstruation, Menopause, And The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Marcy L. Karin, Deborah Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Some workplaces are extraordinarily inhospitable to menstruators, especially those in low-wage jobs. Workers have been denied restroom breaks and then harassed or fired after menstrual blood leaked onto their clothes or their employer’s property. Employers routinely refuse to provide accommodations for menopause symptoms or time off for menstruation-related medical care. The failure to support menstruators is a significant barrier to ensuring workplace equality. This Article explains how federal laws, including the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), can—and should—be interpreted to help address these inequities. PWFA requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” for “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” Menstruation …

No Student-Athlete Left Behind: Non-Revenue Student-Athlete Status Under The Flsa, Ethan Saberhagen

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Leveling The Playing Field Through Collective Bargaining: How The Nlra And The Groundbreaking 2024 Nwsl Cba Could Shape The Wnba’S Impending Cba Negotiations, Benjamin C. Coulthard

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federalism, State Action, And Workers' Medical Privacy, Ani B. Satz

Indiana Law Journal

Injured workers entering state workers’ compensation systems effectively forego their medical privacy. This is due to widespread judicial misinterpretation of the HIPAA Privacy Rule (HPR) as excluding injured workers from federal medical privacy protections. As a result, medical privacy for workers’ compensation claims is effectively governed by state law. This Article argues that states have failed to protect the medical privacy of injured workers adequately and that there is a pressing need for legislative reform. The Article presents the first comprehensive survey in the legal literature of state action protecting the medical privacy of injured workers. Part I describes the …

Benefits Washing, Samantha Prince

Faculty Scholarly Works

Employee benefits often comprise between 24% and 26% of an employee’s total compensation. As such, it is important that people know what benefits companies actually offer. Unfortunately, instead of being transparent, numerous companies engage in what this author calls “benefits washing.” Benefits washing occurs when companies provide vague or misleading information about their employee benefits in an effort to make their benefits appear better than they are. The practice occurs in three primary ways: detail omission, attention deflection, and deceptive manipulation.

This Essay elaborates on what constitutes benefits washing. It presents numerous examples of America’s largest employers engaging in benefits …

How Workplace Equity Laws Perpetuate Inequity, Margaret H. Zhang

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Entrenchment Of Employment Inequality In The Academic Workforce: The Implications Of “An” Appropriate Bargaining Unit, Katherine Ashley

Dalhousie Law Journal

The academic workforce has changed dramatically in recent years. Formerly, universities were staffed primarily by tenured faculty, making possible the collegial governance models under which they operate statutorily. There has been a shift away from this model, however, and universities now rely more heavily on part-time professors. Postsecondary institutions are among the most heavily unionized workplaces in Canada. Yet, while academic unionization is widespread, the unionization model is inconsistent: some unions are faculty associations, while others are not; some unions represent only full-time professors; others represent part-time instructors; others represent both; and some also include other types of academic employees. …

Keynote Address: Envisioning Wage Justice, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

In this Keynote address for the Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality’s Symposium, “Not Just Wages,” held at the University of Minnesota Law School on April 11, 2025, I discuss the evolving concept of wage justice, using the lens of Critical Wage Theory and its origins in pioneering theories of race, labor and justice. The Article outlines the legal frameworks that have defined the content of wage justice in the twenty-first century, particularly for marginal workers. This Article raises the alarm about the impact of political change on low-wage workers, using case studies and analysis of administrative agency enforcement of …

The “Dire Plight” Contextualized: Comment On “The Fiction Of Equitable Distribution: Military Divorce, Disability, And The ‘Dire Plight’ Of The Former Military Spouse” By Zoe Speas, Catlin Meade

Washington and Lee Law Review

For forty years, military spouses have sacrificed their economic security and personal well-being to support their servicemember spouse’s military career, only to be thrust into a “dire plight” if their marriage ends in a community property state. The legislative policy that put them in this untenable position has not served federal interests: the military currently faces a recruiting crisis and military spouses’ economic security has not improved since the USFSPA. It is time for Congress and the DoD to reexamine the incentives and benefits provided to servicemembers and their families. Congress and the Court must end the USFSPA’s groundless, inequitable, …

A Market-Based Approach To Effective Slaughterhouse Line Speed Regulation, Kailey Mcneal

Animal Law Review

The nature of animal agriculture in the United States is heavily industrialized and profit-centered. Industrial animal agriculture maximizes profits and production by employing low-wage workers to do significant loads of labor. Slaughterhouses’ implementation of faster line speeds reflects this tactic. As the industry continues to increase line speeds to boost profits, workers, animals, and the environment continue to face augmented risks to their health and safety. Nonetheless, slaughterhouse line speeds at the federal level remain largely un- and under-regulated. The current federal regulatory scheme is unduly influenced by industry interests, prioritizes profit over safety, and lacks effective enforcement mechanisms. Through …

Mind The Gap(S): Mitigating Harassment In A Post-#Metoo Workplace, Jamillah Bowman Williams, Elizabeth C. Tippett, Anu Ramdin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In a post-#MeToo workplace, harassment remains pervasive, and harassment law still fails to provide protection for the harms experienced by many workers—particularly those in the most vulnerable jobs. Even when reform efforts are introduced through legislation, courts, and agency guidance, it often does not provide greater power, autonomy, and dignity to women in ways that would more meaningfully protect them from workplace abuse. We are the first to create a database of state legislation, including over three thousand bills, that allows us to empirically analyze the extent to which lawmakers comprehensively address harassment following the rise of the #MeToo movement. …

From Ambiguity To Overreach: The Ftc's Questionable Authority To Ban Non-Competes, Taylor Ray Pelton

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Blockchain: A Practical Solution To Monitor Corporate Supply Chains, Gaige J. Graham

Wyoming Law Review

The persistence of human rights abuses within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—particularly in the cobalt mining industry— underscore the failure of international labor protections and corporate due diligence. Despite the International Labor Organization and United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Ruggie Principles), corporations continue to profit from child labor, forced labor, and unregulated artisanal mining. Existing accountability mechanisms, reliant on state enforcement and voluntary corporate compliance, have proven inadequate to address these labor issues. This Comment argues that blockchain technology offers a practical, scalable solution for supply chain transparency, capable of mitigating labor rights violations …

Strikes And The Struggle For Democracy, Angela B. Cornell, Ruth Dukes

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The right to strike is fundamental to the development and maintenance of democratic forms of government. In struggles to construct and defend democratic regimes, strikes, including general strikes, are often an important weapon. In established democracies, the right to strike can aid the spread of democratic decision-making in workplaces and the wider economy, serving indirectly to strengthen participation and confidence in political processes and institutions. And it can underpin systems of collective bargaining that function to narrow income and wealth inequalities, in a manner that is conducive, if not necessary, to the maintenance of democratic government. Wherever the right to …

From The Court To The Courtroom: A Stanley Lens To Potential Equal Pay Act Claims For Women’S Collegiate Athletes, Katrina L.G. Murphy

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Labour Against The Law? Contesting The Restrictive Norms Of Industrial Legality Through Unlawful Strikes, Eric Tucker

All Papers

North American regimes of industrial legality provide workers with protected rights to organize, bargain collectively and strike. However, they also limit the freedom to strike. Trade unions commonly accept and enforce these limits, but at great cost to solidarity and militancy. This article examines the many ways law works against labour by restricting the freedom to strike and explores the practice of unlawful strikes in North America, including recent examples that resulted in successful outcomes. It concludes with reflections on the revival of unlawful strikes as a tactic for rebuilding and remobilizing the North American labour movement. While the article’s …

The Criminal System Under Racial Capitalism, Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal

Faculty Publications

In 2021, major segments of the business lobby converged around a consensus for criminal system reform. As the United States experienced historic levels of labor market tightness, business groups argued for removing “barriers” to employment that system-involved people face. Just a few months later, the orientation of business to the criminal system was decidedly more mixed. By March 2022, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s most powerful business lobby, had stepped to the forefront of the national moral panic around retail theft, launching a vigorous campaign to defend and even strengthen criminal punishment across the country.

Anchoring its analysis …

What’S Left Of The New Deal State?, Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

A vast body of scholarship situates itself in the New Deal era. Another extensive collection explores the history of criminal justice in the United States. To date, however, there has been little effort to bring these conversations together. New Deal Law and Order, written by legal historian Anthony Gregory, fills this conspicuous gap. Gregory remarkably narrates the New Deal era through the lens of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “war on crime” (p. 1), challenging how we think about both the New Deal’s legacy and the foundations of the modern security state.

In recent years, scholars have called on their …

The Case For Specific Performance Of Personal Service Contracts, Kimberly D. Krawiec, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

The per se rule against specific enforcement of personal service contracts is well established under Anglo-American contract law. At the same time, there is a well-developed literature suggesting that specific performance is often a superior remedy to money damages, and those arguments apply with equal or greater force to personal service contracts. We, therefore, argue that this per se rule is mistaken. The per se rule has been justified by the need to avoid involuntary servitude, preserve personal autonomy, and husband judicial resources. We argue that these claims cannot justify a per se rule against specific performance, particularly as at-will …

Rearticulating Labor Rights, Stefan M. Mcdaniel

Journal Articles

From the Article

In principle, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) guarantees most private-sector employees the right to be free from employer interference when they band together in pursuit of shared interests. In practice, most workers—especially the “pre-organizational” workers who have no contact with a union—cannot use their Section 7 rights because they do not know they exist. In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (the Board), the agency which administers the NLRA, promulgated a Rule requiring employers to post notice of workers’ rights. The Rule happened to succumb to legal challenge but would, in any case, …

"Arbitration In Name Only": A Race Claims Mismatch, Michael Z. Green

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

With arbitration’s meteoric rise as a tool in resolving statutory employment discrimination matters beginning in the 1990s, concerns about lack of employee bargaining power received little consideration when raised in court challenges to the enforcement of employer-mandated agreements to arbitrate those claims. Only in rare circumstances, when an employer appeared to go to extremes in using its overwhelming bargaining power to implement an arbitration process so clearly unfair would a court find the agreement created an unfair “arbitration in name only” that should not be enforced.

Employers have become savvier in how they require employees to agree to resolve discrimination …

A Comparative Study Of The U.S. And Foreign Tipping Culture And How Collective Bargaining Can Eliminate Mandatory Tipping In The U.S., Matthew Zelman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Tipping culture in the United States has gotten out of hand, but its roots go very deep. Tipping has been a part of the culture in the United States since the early 1800s, when tips were given to pirates and porters. Today, the share of workers who rely on tips as part of their wages is extraordinary, with sixty percent of service workers stating that they rely on tips for over 30 percent of their income. Many restaurants incorporate mandatory tips on customers’ bills, which has changed tipping from being voluntary.

This Note will propose that “tipped employees” across different …

The U.S. Forced Labor Import Ban: A Tool For Raising Labor Standards In Supply Chains?, Jennifer Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Forced labor is rampant across global supply chains. Addressing it at individual sites of production results in a game of whack-a-mole. An effective response must target the structural drivers of the problem: the large firms at the top and middle of supply chains that pressure suppliers at the bottom to cut labor costs in order to remain competitive. In the absence of other U.S. laws that address the structural causes of forced labor, this Article argues that the forced labor import ban in section 307 of the United States Tariff Act may have the potential to be utilized by civil …

Professors And Company Law: Implications For Academic Freedom, Salar Ghahramani J.D.

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

This Article examines the intersection of company law and academic freedom, specifically exploring how nonprofit universities might invoke corporate and agency law principles to assert breach of fiduciary duty claims when a university could view a professor’s handling of controversial topics or facilitation of provocative class discussions as detrimental to its financial interests or public reputation. Such allegations might arise when universities perceive that these discussions alienate donors, provoke public backlash, or otherwise harm the institution’s standing, thereby framing the professor’s academic choices as potentially disloyal or harmful to the university. While public university professors might argue that the First …

Time For A Clean Finish? Analyzing A New Path To Collective Bargaining At The Wwe, Paige Green

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that professional wrestlers in the WWE face significant challenges in achieving fair compensation and better working conditions due to their classification as independent contractors, which denies them protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). It proposes that leveraging antitrust law could provide an alternative and effective strategy for wrestlers to collectively bargain and improve their circumstances, drawing parallels to successful efforts by UFC fighters.

The Doors Of Janus: A Critical Analysis Of The Socio-Technical Forces Eroding Trust In The Rule Of Law, Anuj Puri, Esther Keymolen

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The Rule of Law is neither just a principle nor solely the institutions that embody that principle, a critical aspect of the Rule of Law is its grounding in trust which often gets neglected in the surrounding discourse. When the citizens' trust in the Rule of Law weakens, the Rule of Law becomes fragile. In this article we examine the impact of emerging technologies on the citizens' trust in the Rule of Law. Our analysis is specifcally focused on the effect of systemic disinformation which is likely to worsen with the advent of Generative AI, algorithmic misgovernance, and the digitalization …

The Value Of A Statistical Life: From Skin In The Game To Vision Zero, Michael C. Duff

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay discusses justice issues surrounding occupational safety and health and assesses the ethical legitimacy—the justice—of regulatory cost benefit analysis when the costs in question involve the risks and realization of workplace injury and fatalities. The current “value of a statistical life” for legal-regulatory purposes is 13.1 million dollars. While economists are careful to say that this figure does not “really” represent an attempt to value any particular life, the purpose of even calculating the number is to provide an “aggregated” statistical justification for saying “no” to rules requiring safer work. This seems acceptable until you, or someone you love, …

Response: Work And Home, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

The idea of work, as it pertains to a place called home, as distinct from the market, has engaged and perplexed scholars for generations. Work in the home raises complicated issues that have accordingly drawn the focus of generations of scholars, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the material feminists of the late nineteenth century¹ to historians of labor such as Eileen Boris² and of law like Reva Siegel,³ from legal scholars like Fran Olson, Dorothy Roberts, and Robert Ellickson⁴ to social theorists like Friedrick Engels⁵ and architectural historians like Dolores Hayden,⁶ to name just …

Troubling Trends: Ada Definition-Of-Disability Cases 2019-2023, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

This empirical Article continues my every-five-year tradition of examining every federal case discussing the definition of disability since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was amended, effective 2009. The results of this research from the third five-year period (2019–2023) are disappointing in both familiar and surprising ways. Similar to the 2014–2018 period, we continue to see way too many courts incorrectly applying (or not even citing to) the ADA Amendments Act. Moreover, I discovered several new troubling trends in this dataset that raise the possibility that we might be heading toward another backlash against ADA plaintiffs. This Article presents my …

By Any Other Name: Dei Is Not What You Think It Is, Nicole Porter

Faculty Publications

In this moment, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs are hotly debated and very misunderstood. Contrary to popular belief, DEI programs do not drastically change an employer’s hiring practices. They are, to some extent, performative. In this essay, I explain what DEI really is and why a rebranding (or at least a new name) might be in order.