Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Wage Theft As Public Larceny, Elizabeth J. Kennedy

Brooklyn Law Review

Home care for the elderly and disabled is a rapidly expanding industry in which structural and regulatory factors contribute to worker vulnerability and exploitation. Systemic exclusion from core federal employment and labor laws, as well as many state and local regulations, results in minimal consequences for employers who violate standards. Despite recent movement at the federal level to create a “new mindset” of rights and regulations, home care workers must be equipped with creative ways to enforce these new rights and to challenge existing gaps in enforcement. With the understanding that two-thirds of the home care industry is financed by …

Criminal Labor Law, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines a recent rise in suits brought against unions under criminal statutes. By looking at the long history of criminal regulation of labor, the Article argues that these suits represent an attack on the theoretical underpinnings of post-New Deal U.S. labor law and an attempt to revive a nineteenth century conception of unions as extortionate criminal conspiracies. The Article further argues that this criminal turn is reflective of a broader contemporary preference for finding criminal solutions to social and economic problems. In a moment of political gridlock, parties seeking regulation increasingly do so via criminal statute. In this …

Chevron Is Dead; Long Live Chevron, Michael Herz

Articles

The Supreme Court's decision in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. continues to obsess academics and courts alike. Despite all the attention, however; the "Chevron revolution" never quite happens. This decision, though seen as transformatively important, is honored in the breach, in constant danger of being abandoned, and the subject of perpetual confusion and uncertainty. This Essay seeks both to bury and to praise Chevron.

Chevron is not a revolutionary shift of authority from the judiciary to the executive. That Chevron is dead. The Chevron that survives is an appropriate allocation of decisionmaking responsibility among the three …

Re-Assembling Labor, John D. Inazu, Marion G. Crain

Scholarship@WashULaw

Organized labor’s judicial, political, and public image is often associated with violence and anarchy. These descriptions are not spun out of whole cloth: violent uprisings that challenged the political and economic order were common in the early days of American labor unionism. But the assumptions underlying past judicial rhetoric and labor law doctrine have outlived their original context. Historical antecedents applied to modern protests like Fast Food Forward, OUR Walmart and the Occupy Movement yield troubling and inconsistent results.

Although these tensions have not gone unnoticed, scholarly commentary to date has overlooked the important connection between the collective, group-based nature …

Supreme Court Cases 2013–14 Term, Barbara Fick

Books

This is section 6 from a symposium called "Recent Developments in Employment Law" hosted by the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum, December 16, 2014.

I’M Shocked, Shocked To Find That Politics Is Going On In Here, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Collective Representation And Employee Voice In The U.S. Public Sector Workplace: Looking North For Solutions?, Martin H. Malin

All Faculty Scholarship

Legislation enacted in many states following the 2010 elections in the United States strengthened unilateral public employer control and weakened employee voice. This rebalancing of power occurred in the context of state public employee labour relations acts modeled on the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), but with a narrower scope of bargaining than in the private sector. This narrow scope channels unions’ voice away from the quality of public services and towards protecting members from the effects of decisions unilaterally imposed by management. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that the freedom of association guaranteed by the Charter of …

Permanent Replacements: Organized Labor’S Fall, Employment Law’S (Incomplete) Rise, And The Way Forward, Alexander T. Macdonald

W&M Law Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Accommodating Labor And Antitrust, Stephen F. Ross

Utah OnLaw: The Utah Law Review Online Supplement

Short of its two critical premises—that sports labor restraints may harm players but benefit fans and the sport’s popularity, and that the Sherman Act must always step aside to protect the “entire collective bargaining process”—Professor LeRoy’s thorough research loses much of its normative force. This provocative contribution is particularly revealing in one respect that he does not explicitly mention, however, akin to Sherlock Holmes’ famous insight that the telling clue was that the sleeping dog did not bark.34 All of the lawsuits Professor LeRoy studied involved challenges by union-represented players; none involved challenges by the principal beneficiaries of the Sherman …

Innovation In China: Fragmentation, Structured Uncertainty, And Technology Standards, Michael Murphree, Dan Breznitz

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

This Article discusses the history of China’s attempts to develop indigenous technology standards. A case study is presented on China’s attempts to develop digital optical storage media standards, the failure of which we attribute to fragmentation of production and structured uncertainty in China’s economy. Despite the market failures of China’s domestic standards development efforts, we conclude by highlighting some of the appurtenant benefits they produce for Chinese manufacturers.

The Roberts Court And The Law Of Human Resources, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

The rise of human resources departments parallels the increase in the myriad statutory and regulatory requirements that govern the workplace. The Supreme Court's decisions in labor and employment law cases are largely monitored and implemented by HR professionals who must carry out these directives on a daily basis. This article looks at the Roberts Court's labor and employment law cases through the lens of human resources. In adopting an approach that is solicitous towards HR departments and concerns, the Roberts Court reflects a willingness to empower these private institutional players. Even if labor and employment law scholars do not agree …

The Vulnerable Subject At Work: A New Perspective On The Employment At-Will Debate, Jonathan Fineman

Journal Publications

This article applies recent "vulnerability" scholarship to employment law issues. A vulnerability approach argues that the autonomous liberal legal subject at the heart of much of political and legal thought fails to capture the material, social, and developmental realities of the human condition and thus should be replaced with a "vulnerable subject." Importantly, and in contrast to the autonomous, independent, and self sufficient abstraction of the liberal legal subject, the vulnerable legal subject is theorized as embodied and as embedded in social contexts. The idea of the vulnerable subject has been described as providing a needed intervention into U.S. policy …

Public-Sector Unions, Public Employees: May You Live In Interesting Times, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Promises Policies And Principles The Supreme Court And Contractual Obligation In Labor Relations, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Danbury Hatters In Sweden: An American Perspective Of Employer Remedies For Illegal Collective Actions, César F. Rosado Marzán, Margot Nikitas

All Faculty Scholarship

The European Court of Justice's ("ECJ") Laval quartet held that worker collective actions that impacted freedom of services and establishment in the E.U. violated E.U. law. After Laval, the Swedish Labor Court imposed exemplary or punitive damages on labor unions for violating E.U. law. These cases have generated critical discussions regarding not only the proper balance between markets and workers’ freedom of association, but also what should be the proper remedies for employers who suffer illegal actions by labor unions under E.U. law. While any reforms to rebalance fundamental freedoms as a result of the Laval quartet will have to …

Punishment And Work Law Compliance: Lessons From Chile, César F. Rosado Marzán

All Faculty Scholarship

Workplace law activists and reformers find it increasingly more difficult to obtain redress for violation of workers’ rights. Some of them are calling for stricter enforcement and tougher penalties to bring employers into compliance. However, after seven and half months of participant observation at the Labor Directorate and the labor courts of Chile, institutions that use punishment as their main tools of enforcement, I am skeptical about the likelihood of success of mere punishment for effective workplace law enforcement and compliance. I am skeptical even though Chile is a country recognized as the Latin American “jaguar” for its successful economy …

Are Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives Exempted From The Overtime-Pay Requirements Of The Fair Labor Standards Act?, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Legislative Upheaval In Public-Sector Labor Law: A Search For Common Elements, Martin H. Malin

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Swimming In The Crosscurrents Of History: Labor And Employment Law Under The Obama Administration, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Matthew Kelley

Indiana Law Journal

Labor and Employment Law Under the Obama Administration: A Time for Hope and Change? Symposium held November 12-13, 2010, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana

North American Border Wars: The Role Of Canadian And American Scholarship In U.S. Labor Law Reform Debates, Michael J. Zimmer, Susan Bisom-Rapp

Faculty Scholarship

The economies of Canada and the United States and the organization of their societies are deeply interrelated but significant differences exist. This article briefly traces the interaction between the two countries in the development of labor relations laws with a particular emphasis on the impact of scholarly work on U.S. labor law reform debates in the last two decades. Instructive for that purpose is the work of Professor Paul Weiler, a prominent figure in labor law policy discussions in both countries. A significant architect of labor law in Canada, Professor Weiler came to Harvard Law School in 1978 and brought …

Working On Immigration: Three Models Of Labor And Employment Regulation, Rick Su

Journal Articles

The desire to tailor our immigration system to the economic interests of our nation is as old as its founding. Yet after more than two centuries of regulatory tinkering, we seem no closer to finding the right balance. Contemporary observers largely ascribe this failure to conflicts over immigration. Shifting the focus, I suggest here that longstanding disagreements in the world of economic regulations — in particular, tensions over the government’s role in regulating labor conditions and employment practices — also explains much of the difficulty behind formulating a policy approach to immigration. In other words, we cannot reach a political …

Chair's Message, Michael Herz

Articles

No abstract provided.

Tribal Rituals Of The Mdl: A Comment On Williams, Lee, And Borden, Repeat Players In Multidistrict Litigation, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

No abstract provided.

Blue-Collar Crime: Conspiracy, Organized Labor, And The Anti-Union Civil Rico Claim, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article provides an historically-rooted analysis of a recent spate of civil RICO complaints arising from labor union organizing campaigns. The Article historicizes contemporary civil RICO suits against labor unions by analogizing to nineteenth century conspiracy prosecutions of unions. In tracing this history of organized labor’s social standing, the Article addresses the cultural framing of the union and its place in political and cultural discourse over the past century. The civil RICO complaints have received limited scholarly attention mainly focusing on issues of federal preemption; this Article argues for a broad reading of the cases as a way to understand …

Just Notice: A Paradigm-Shifting Solution To Economic Dismissals, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Religion Anti-Discrimination And The Decline Of Labor Law, Nathan B. Oman

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Is The Breast Best For Business?: The Implications Of The Breastfeeding Promotion Act, Brit Mohler

William & Mary Business Law Review

In June of 2009, the 111th Congress was asked again to consider the Breastfeeding Promotion Act. During that year, for the first time in history, the Senate also took up consideration of the issue, and the President of the United States signed into legislation a portion of the Act as included in a healthcare bill. The Breastfeeding Promotion Act is meant to protect a woman’s right to breastfeed in the workplace. The Act accomplishes this goal by: amending the Civil Rights Act to ensure that breastfeeding will be considered a protected act in the workplace, amending the Fair Labor Standards …

Mandatory Disclosure In The Market For Union Representation, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

For over sixty years, the National Labor Relations Board has followed the “laboratory conditions” doctrine in its regulation of representation elections. According to the doctrine, the Board must provide workers with an electoral “laboratory” in order to determine the “uninhibited desires” of the employees. Elections are vacated and conducted anew if the winning party violated the laboratory conditions. The laboratory conditions doctrine suggests an active and vigorous role for the Board in providing employees with the proper election environment. However, the Board’s regulation has largely focused on keeping out electoral impurities and has done little to make sure employees have …

Judicial Amendments Treating Citizen And Immigrant Workers Equally . . . Badly: Labor Rights Without Effective Remedies, Anne M. Lofaso

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Occupational Safety And Health Standards As Federal Law: The Hazards Of Haste, Robert D. Moran

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.