Labor and Employment Law | Open Access Articles

Politics As Usual: Racial Pay Inequity And The Illusion Of Inclusion In The Rise And Fall Of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Accessibility Executive Orders, Francois C. Melville

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This research examines pressing moral policy questions of our time: who determines when the United States of America has fulfilled its broken promise of equality for all, and what constitutes an appropriate measure of reparative justice. It interrogates why the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Executive Orders (EOs) implemented across presidential administrations, intended to advance social equity, were grounded in conflict and symbolic gestures rather than scientifically evidenced issues such as wage inequality directly linked to upward career mobility. Race conscious policy generates cultural clashes centered on the perception that gains made by Black and Brown Americans come at the …

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Negligent Hiring: Recidivism And Employment With A Criminal Record, Benjamin David Pyle

Faculty Scholarship

This Article tackles a difficult legal and policy challenge— reducing the impact of criminal records on job applicants’ chances in a manner that does not spur more discrimination—by looking at how another area of law, tort liability, impacts employers’ decision-making. It uses theoretical and empirical methods to study the most common reason employers report being reluctant to hire workers with a criminal record: legal liability generated by the tort of negligent hiring. While the purpose of the tort is ostensibly to protect and make whole those harmed when an employee misbehaves in a foreseeable manner, I show that, in practice, …

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The Law Of Quitting, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

Throughout life, people enter countless positions of authority and trust in relation to one another and the public. These positions include, among many others, being a public official, being a corporate director, and being an employee. Law announces prerequisites for starting such positions, as well as incumbents’ rights and obligations once in them. But no office holds forever. Indeed, incumbents often choose to exit positions before they would otherwise end by expiration, removal, or death. Yet law governs such voluntary relinquishment—often called “resignation” or, more generically, “quitting”—largely as afterthought. That is, law expansively attends how positions of authority and trust …

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Workers’ Empowerment As U.S. Trade Policy, Desiree Leclercq

Scholarly Works

U.S. trade policy stands at an inflection point. The Biden administration’s “worker-centered” trade policy promised to empower foreign workers to improve employment and living standards globally, but it linked its trade assistance to political allies. The Trump administration’s “America First” trade policy promises to use tariffs and isolationism to protect and empower U.S. workers, but it is fostering antagonism rather than cooperation in trade. Both policies, while sharply diverging at the edges, recognize that U.S. trade policy affects employment opportunities in the United States. Both policies also critically overlook the relationship between the treatment of workers in trade partner countries, …

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Enhancing Military Health System Organizational Efficiency And Quality Of Care Through A Social-Ecological Framework, Eric L. Peipelman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Timely and fair adjudication of incivility-related actions within the Department of Defense (DoD) and Military Health System (MHS) is increasingly crucial for maintaining accountability, mission readiness, and quality of care. Ongoing delays in resolving workplace complaints and inefficiencies in resource-heavy adjudications highlight the need to shift from reactive complaint handling toward proactive civility promotion and transparent decision-making. This Integrated Learning Experience (ILE) introduces the Peipelman Civility Discussion and Assessment Toolkit (PCDAT)—a comprehensive, evidence-based framework designed to improve civility, optimize resources, and enhance communication, even in the MHS. Based on the Social-Ecological Model (SEM) and adapted from the Workplace Power and …

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Data Rights For Workers, Pauline Kim, Rachel Leavitt

Scholarship@WashULaw

Workers are subject to immense amounts of data collection on the job, and the algorithmic management tools built with that data can produce negative effects, including deskilling jobs, unstable work hours, reduced wages, and dangerous and degrading working conditions. Workers thus have significant interests how their data are collected and used, and yet they have been excluded from nearly all the recently enacted or proposed data protection laws. Their exclusion stems from data protection’s roots in privacy law and theory, which primarily focused on consumers as data subjects. Current data protection laws, even if expanded to cover workers, would provide …

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Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Full-Text Articles in Labor and Employment Law

Politics As Usual: Racial Pay Inequity And The Illusion Of Inclusion In The Rise And Fall Of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Accessibility Executive Orders, Francois C. Melville

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

Negligent Hiring: Recidivism And Employment With A Criminal Record, Benjamin David Pyle

Faculty Scholarship

The Law Of Quitting, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

Workers’ Empowerment As U.S. Trade Policy, Desiree Leclercq

Scholarly Works

Enhancing Military Health System Organizational Efficiency And Quality Of Care Through A Social-Ecological Framework, Eric L. Peipelman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Data Rights For Workers, Pauline Kim, Rachel Leavitt

Scholarship@WashULaw