Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Extending Weingarten To The Nonunion Setting: A History Of Oscillation, Sarah C. Flannery

Cleveland State Law Review

Passed in response to the nineteenth century hostility towards union activity, the NLRA traditionally was viewed as a pro-union statute. However, as much as the Act contains provisions clearly aimed at protecting union activity, the Act explicitly applies to non-union employees as well as union employees. Nevertheless, many nonunion employers and employees are unaware of the existence of the NLRA despite it being the only law governing the relationship between an employer and its employees as a group in most private sector establishments in this country. This Note analyzes the conflicting history surrounding this issue and asserts that the necessary …

Restricting Public Employees' Political Activities: Good Government Or Partisan Politics?, Rafael Gely, Timothy D. Chandler

Faculty Publications

The article starts by reviewing, in Part II, the history of the regulation of political activities by public employees, and in Part III, the regulation of patronage. Part IV develops the argument that both sets of regulations, although justified on different grounds, are better understood as political control mechanisms. Part V provides some empirical evidence for this argument by examining voting patterns on federal legislation restricting public employees' political activities. Part VI discusses the relationship of these laws to public sector unionization. Part VII concludes the article.

New Plants As Natural Experiments In Economic Adjustment: Adjustment Costs, Learning-By-Doing And Lumpy Investment, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

A large sample of new plants is studied to reveal detailed adjustment behavior for capital, labor and productivity. Once production has begun, capital adjusts almost as quickly as labor. Overall, capital adjustment is lumpy while labor follows a learning-by-doing model rather than a convex adjustment cost model. Plants are quite heterogeneous, however: convex adjustment costs appear important at small plants, but large plants exhibit lumpy investment and substantial investment in learning-by-doing. A positive association between plant productivity growth and wages (and also the change in wages) corroborates the importance of learning-by-doing. Also, learning-by-doing appears to influence the behavior of large …

Labor Law Access Rules And Stare Decisis: Developing A Planned Parenthood-Based Model Of Reform, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

This article deals with labor law access rules, particularly the rights of unions to gain access to employers' private property for organizing purposes. Professors Gely and Bierman provide a comprehensive analysis of the access issue and identify two major problems with the manner in which the Supreme Court has approached this area. First, the Supreme Court has dealt piecemeal with the various aspects of this problem without attempting to develop a coherent framework. Second, the Court has been reluctant to analyze the access issue within the context of today's workplace.Professors Gely and Bierman attribute the Supreme Court's flawed approach to …

The Arbitral Imperative In Labor & Employment Law, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

For the better part of this decade, labor law scholars have turned their attention increasingly to labor law reform. And for good reason. Private sector unionization has fallen from a high of forty percent in the mid-1950s to a low of about eleven percent today. Many reasons—ranging from employer resistance to unionization to union inability to organize in the Sunbelt—explain this decline. Some scholars even suggest that a critical factor has been the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, whose amendments to the Wagner Act, it is argued, have erected insurmountable barriers to unionization and collective bargaining.

After fifty years, it seems …

Where Are We Now?: Life After Electromation, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

Given the expectations that preceded the Board's decisions, and the reactions that followed, it is somewhat surprising how little attention has been given to the decisions the NLRB has issued since Electromation and E.I. du Pont. While in general these recent decisions are consistent with the holdings in Electromation and E.I. du Pont, they provide us with the opportunity to analyze the manner in which the Board is currently dealing with the legality of workplace cooperative efforts. This article explores that issue. Part II of the article provides a brief overview of the workplace cooperative efforts problem. Part III reviews …

Labor And The Supreme Court: Review Of The 1996-1997 Term, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court's 1996-1997 Term will surely not be remembered among lawyers for its decisions in the employment area. Most of these decisions involved narrow questions of statutory interpretation, and for the most part the Court has handed down opinions consistent with existing case law. There was not one National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) decision this Term and the two employment discrimination cases involved fairly technical issues of statutory interpretation. The feeling of a quiet year is put across by simply reading the statutes at issue other than Title VII: the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) (one case), the …

"Let's Call It A Draw": Striker Replacements And The Mackay Doctrine, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

In a recent article we discuss the issue of the use of permanent replacements for striking employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) Our discussion focuses on the efficiency aspects of the seminal 1938 case of NLRB v. Mackay Radio and Telegraph Co. In the article, we propose a “negotiations” approach, which we argue is likely to result in a more economically efficient interpretation of the Mackay doctrine. As has been the case with other proposals made with respect to this very contentious issue, our proposal has confronted some criticism. Professor William R. Corbett, in a recent piece in …

The Railway Labor Act Of 1926 And Modern-Day Airline Labor Strife: Progress Toward Labor Peace Begins With Overruling Williams V. Jacksonville Terminal Co., Mark A. Schuler

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that Williams v. Jacksonville Terminal Co. either should be overruled, or should be appropriately limited to the fact-specific setting under which it was decided. To develop this thesis, Part II of this Comment will discuss both the history of labor unrest which drove Congress to pass the RLA and the design features of the RLA legislation which facilitate an atmosphere of cooperative bargaining through which the RLA dispute resolution system operates. Part III will discuss the first impression Williams case, wherein the Supreme Court gave an overly restrictive interpretation to the RLA, and will also discuss the …

Whose Team Are You On? My Team Or My Team?: The Nlra's Section 8(A)(2) And The Team Act, Rafael Gely

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes employee participatory programs from the internal labor markets perspective. Internal Labor Markets (“ILM”) refer to the explicit or implicit agreements between employer and employees incorporating rules governing wages, working hours, promotion opportunities and grievance procedures. In order to function properly, ILMs require employees to learn skills that are valuable to the contracting firm, but are of much lesser value elsewhere. Employees agree to acquire such “firm-specific” skills and employers agree to subsidize the training needed to obtain these new skills. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement: employers expect to observe increases in productivity and efficiency and employees …

Commodification And Women's Household Labor, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

A woman washes a kitchen floor. She puts the mop away and drives to the comer market. She consults a shopping list, and purchases groceries from it, carefully choosing the least expensive options. A four-year-old child is tugging at her leg while she does this, and she tries to entertain him, talking to him about the mopped floor, the grocery items. When she returns from the store, she prepares lunch from what she has brought home with her. She and the child both eat lunch. After lunch, she and the child collect laundry and she runs a load. She takes …

A Theory Of Minimum Contract Terms, With Implications For Labor Law, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This Paper deals with a topic at the core of labor, property, and contract law: to what extent should individuals be free to enter into agreements of their choice? In many instances, the state intervenes to tell parties that they may not execute or enforce certain agreements, or that they must incorporate certain "minimum terms." A broad view of property rights would support the position that individuals are free to enter into whatever agreements suit them. A narrow view, on the other hand, is consistent with the claim that the state may require contracting parties to comply with a set …

Reply: The Need For Real Striker Replacement Reform, Rafael Gely, Leonard Bierman

Faculty Publications

Introduction In a recent article in the North Carolina Law Review, Louisiana State University Law Professor William R. Corbett proposes an innovative solution to the contentious issue of the right of employers to permanently replace economic strikers pursuant to the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or “Act”). Professor Corbett's proposal is based on two arguments. First, he argues that the current legal distinction between “economic” and “unfair labor practice” strikes -- whereby employers are prevented from permanently replacing employees striking over employer unfair labor practices but may permanently replace employees striking over economic issues -- is a useful one and …

Crafting A Corporate Code From Scratch, Uriel Procaccia

Cardozo Law Review

In the summer of 1982 1 was contacted by the incumbent Minister of Justice of the State of Israel, Mr. Moshe Nissim. Nissim asked me to accept the commission of drafting a brand new and fully cohesive corporate code to replace our current, antiquated Companies Ordinance. I consented at once. Having consented, it occurred to me to reflect on the meaning of that little word, "cohesive," which was used-quite inadvertently, I presume-in Minister Nissim's solicitation. I finally came to interpret it as a sort of puzzle, or perhaps a quiz, which the resulting product, the corporate code, was crafted to …

Turning Labor Into Love: Housework And The Law, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

Women's unpaid domestic labor produces tremendous economic value. In the United States, women spend more of their productive work hours in unpaid labor than in paid labor, and the credible estimates of the economic value of unpaid labor range from the equivalent of 24% to 60% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product ("GDP"). Given its economic value and its significant role in the working lives of women, it is surprising that the topic of home labor has received no systematic examination by legal scholars. This Article undertakes such an examination. It concludes that a wide range of legal doctrines treat …

Labor Is Losing Ground In The Workplace, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Small Numbers, Black Men, Precipitous Responses, Big Problems, Michael A. Middleton

Faculty Publications

Professor Culp has aptly warned us that in our discussion of employment discrimination we should not lose sight of the need to address the spectrum of policies affecting the status of African-Americans. Without serious efforts in all aspects of American life (e.g., housing, education, health care, political and economic empowerment) our chances of significantly improving the future for African-American men are slim.

Comparative Analysis Of Labor Mediation Using A Bargaining Strength Model, Alvin L. Goldman

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The comparison of different legal systems offers a number of analytical and research advantages, one of which is that it provides a laboratory for observing differences and similarities in the ways in which common regulatory and dispute resolution models operate in similar and dissimilar environments. This Essay uses that laboratory to illustrate how the bargaining strength model presented in Settling for More: Mastering Negotiation Strategies and Techniques can be applied in analyzing mediatory interventions and provide a better understanding of (a) how such interventions can be utilized most effectively, (b) when they are useful, (c) when they are superfluous, and …

The Duty Of Fair Representation Under The Taylor Law: Supreme Court Development, New York State Adoption And A Call For Independence, Vincent Martin Bonventre

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The duty of fair representation in labor negotiations was born in Supreme Court case law to protect against racial discrimination and as a bastion of individuals’ interests during exclusive union representation in the collective bargaining process. The law later became as much a prescription for deference to unions as a protector from arbitrary union rule. As it currently stands, the law has become a minimal safeguard against wholly irrational and invidious union conduct far from the original guarantee of competent and committed union representation. Almost 25 years after the Supreme Court recognized a duty of fair representation in federal labor …

Labor, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Book Chapters

Labor relations present three principal kinds of constitutional issues. First, to what extent does the first amendment protect employees’ efforts to organize labor unions and solicit support, and to what extent does it limit the power of unions over their members? Second, how does the doctrine of federal preemption restrict the states in regulating union and management activities? Third, what due process guarantees may employers and employees invoke in response to federal and state laws establishing new substantive rules and remedies in employment? Although the Supreme Court has never squarely?

Survey Of Recent Developments In Indiana Law: Labor And Employment Law, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article examines developments in labor and employment law occuring shortly before its publicaiton in 1992. The article discusses cases revisiting the Frampton rule, addressing employee defamation suits against employers, employment discrimination, issues arising in public sector employment, wage statutes, unemployment compensation, and workers' compensation. It also discusses a state statute prohibiting employment discrimination based on employees' off-duty use of tobacco.

New Paradigms For Reasoning With Uncertain Information, Ronald R. Yager

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Inherently Discriminatory Conduct Revisited: Do We Know It When We See It?, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

"This article traces the development of the inherently discriminatory doctrine, proposes some guidelines for determining when employer conduct falls under the rubric of the inherently discriminatory doctrine, and analyzes two cases dealing with employer use of temporary replacements during offensive lockouts in light of the proposed guidelines."

More Lessons From Japan: End Industrywide Collective Bargaining?, Robert H. Lande, Richard O. Zerbe Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The number of books and articles discussing Japanese management techniques with an eye to transplanting them to the United States is staggering. Americans understandably are impressed by Japanese efficiency and like to think the adoption of some of their techniques will aid our own industries. Often these proposals seem fanciful and fail to recognize the many differences between the two countries, their economic systems and cultures.

In Defense Of Management Buyouts, J. Robert Brown Jr.

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Leveraged buyouts have become a popular bête noire. The gargantuan size of the transactions and the perception of unconscionable profits have led to a general pillorying in the popular press. Their unpopularity has generated a congressional call to arms and proposals for “reform” by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The plain effect of these efforts, if successful, would be an increase in the cost of buyouts, thereby reducing their frequency.

While perhaps politically attractive, a reduction in frequency may have long-term, harmful consequences. Leveraged buyouts, particularly those inspired by management, represent the ultimate antitakeover device. No longer can an interloper …

Challenging Discriminatory Guesswork: Does Impact Analysis Apply, Michael A. Middleton

Faculty Publications

This article initially examines the traditional theories of proof in Title VII cases. It then discusses approaches by lower courts in resolving the competing concerns raised in applying those traditional theories in challenges to subjective selection devices. This article next discusses the Supreme Court's resolution of the problem in Watson and suggests a workable alternative resolution that will not undermine the broad prophylactic purposes of Title VII.

Rational Decisions And Regulation Of Union Entry, Keith N. Hylton, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

More than a decade after the publication of Law and Reality, the debate continues over the proper scope of election campaign regulation under the National Labor Relations Act (the "Act"). The issue has been whether employer efforts to dissuade employees from electing a union to represent them in collective bargaining actually influence the outcomes of elections. Several academic lawyers and social scientists have criticized one aspect or another of the Getman, Goldberg and Herman results (hereinafter the "Getman Study"), suggesting that many employer tactics have no effect on election outcomes, and that such tactics should not be regulated by …

Labor, Management, And The First Amendment: Whose Rights Are These, Anyway?, Richard Michael Fischl

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Work On A Labor Theory Of Meaning, Kenneth M. Casebeer

Articles

No abstract provided.

Is Fraudulent Conveyance Law Efficient?, David G. Carlson

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.