Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Call For Action: Provinces And Territories Must Protect Our Genetic Information, Leah Hutt, Elaine Gibson, Erin Kennedy

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Genetic Non-Discrimination Act (GNDA), passed by Parliament in 2017, seeks to protect Canadians’ genetic information. The GNDA establishes certain criminal prohibitions to the use of genetic information and also amends federal employment and human rights legislation to protect against genetic discrimination. However, we argue that the GNDA alone is insufficient to protect Canadians given constitutional limitations on the powers of the federal government. Areas of profound importance relating to genetic discrimination are governed by the provinces and territories. We identify three key areas of provincial/territorial jurisdiction relevant to protection against genetic discrimination and outline the applicable legislative environments. We …

Denial Of Jury Trials For Employees With Disabilities: The High Bar Of Proving Discrimination Intent, Stacy Hickox, Maya Stevelinck

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

Employees with disabilities face stigma and stereotypes associated with their impairment. Revelation of a disability to obtain an accommodation can lead to negative consequences including harassment, retaliation, or even discharge, as documented by a survey of employees who requested accommodations at a university. This paper explores how difficult it is for employees facing such negative consequences to prove discriminatory intent under the Americans with Disabilities Act (hereinafter "ADA"). An extensive review of court decisions reveals that the ADA's protection against discrimination rarely provides relief to employees who suffer those negative consequences because the courts defer to employers' reasons for adverse …

Points About Cedar Point: What Labor Access Survives, And What Should Survive (Or Be Restored), Michael J. Hayes

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Utilizing Telehealth To Practice Medicine Across State Lines: The Enforceability Of Physician Non-Compete Agreements And Non-Solicitation Clauses, Alexia Willis

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Federal-State Partnership: How The Federal Government Should Better Support Its State Unemployment Insurance Offices In Times Of Crisis, Maddie Mcfee

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of people to lose their jobs and become dependent on unemployment benefits. State unemployment offices were not prepared for this sudden onslaught of claims. Offices could not increase staffing levels because they were not given money by the federal government to do so. As offices were overwhelmed, a scammer group named Scattered Canary took this opportunity to fraudulently claim millions of dollars from several states. Because the federal government supplies administrative funds to states based on average previous need, the system is not designed to support states’ increased needs during sudden economic …

Emergency Money: Lessons From The Paycheck Protection Program, Susan C. Morse

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, was huge. Between April 2020 and May 2021, it provided almost $800 billion to more than 11 million businesses—about a third of all U.S. businesses with 500 employees or fewer. The PPP was also flawed. Treasury and the Small Business Administration faced incomplete statutory instructions and a challenging tradeoff between speed and accuracy in distributing PPP funds.

These flaws make the PPP a realistic and valuable case study; the PPP reveals tools that can be applied to similar distributions of emergency funds. One tool is back-end adjustments, meaning that funds are first distributed and …

How Serving Jobless Workers During The Pandemic’S Economic Recession Grounded Students: A Reflection From Michigan’S Workers’ Rights Clinic, Rachael Kohl, Nancy Vettorello

Articles

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the delivery of legal education. Many courses switched to remote instruction, and that change was particularly complicated for clinical courses. For Michigan's Workers' Right Clinic (WRC), however, the pandemic brought more than a change in course delivery - it brought a huge influx of new cases and community need with rapidly and continually changing laws. This article describes how the WRC navigated and thrived, despite the rapid changes brought about by the pandemic, and how the clinic provided an opportunity for students to engage in more complex work that benefited students both academically and mentally. …

Legalizing Undocumented Work, Jennifer J. Lee

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Singapore Will Soon Have Workplace Anti-Discrimination Laws: Here’S What You Need To Know, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Work is often a significant part of one’s life. Decisions by employers — including hiring decisions and choices on how to treat employees at work — can have life-changing effects on lives and livelihoods. Therefore, if there were reason to suspect that some employers make such decisions on the grounds of applicants’ or employees’ race, sex, or other personal characteristics without a valid reason, then we should be worried. If that were to become widespread, our society would suffer. Some people would face greater challenges than others at work, and therefore in life, merely because of who they are.

The End “Goal” To The U.S. Women’S Soccer Team Equal Pay Lawsuit: Proposing A Resolution For Gender Equality By Examining The Equal Pay Laws For Male And Female Sports, Veronica Adams

University of Miami Business Law Review

In March 2019, on International Women’s Day, 28 women on the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team filed a lawsuit against The U.S. Soccer Federation claiming gender discrimination, specifically in unequal payment between the men’s team and the women’s team. Players based the lawsuit on two grounds: (1) that U.S. Soccer violated the Equal Pay Act by paying the WNT less than the MNT; and (2) that the federation discriminated against the WNT under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in regard to workplace conditions. The Federation claims that the men and women are paid equally and the discrepancy in pay …

A More Pixelated Union: A Look At The Path To Unionization In The Video Game Industry Under Trump’S National Labor Relations Board, William C. Selfridge

University of Miami Business Law Review

In the past twenty years, the video game industry has become one of the largest entertainment industries not only in the United States but in the entire world. Yet as video game sales continue to increase at massive rates, it seems the conditions for those making the games have not improved with it, at least according to some in the know. While other entertainment industries have moved to unionize, those in the video game industry have yet to take that leap. To make matters worse, during the administration of President Donald J. Trump, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) shifted …

It's Alright, Ma, It's Life And Life Only: Have Universities Been Meeting Their Legal Obligations To High-Risk Faculty During The Pandemic?, Gary J. Simson, Mark L. Jones, Cathren K. Page, Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne

Pepperdine Law Review

Even those universities most firmly committed to returning to in-person instruction in fall semester 2020 recognized that for health reasons some exceptions would need to be made. The CDC had identified two groups—people age sixty-five and over and people with certain medical conditions—as persons "at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19," and it had spelled out various special precautions they should take to avoid contracting the virus. Given the CDC's unique stature, universities very reasonably could have been expected to grant exceptions to faculty falling into either group, but that's not what many universities did. We argue that, properly …

2021 Labor Day Facts - Travel, Money & More: Ask The Experts, John S. Kiernan, Erin J. Hendrickson

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Protection On The Rights And Interests Of Chinese Seafarers Under Mlc 2006, Haixia Pan

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

A “License To Kale”—Free Speech Challenges To Occupational Licensing Of Nutrition And Dietetics, Taylor J. Newman, Angela E. Surrett

St. Mary's Law Journal

State licensing of medical professions has occurred for over a century. Recently, these licensure statutes have been subject to First Amendment challenges, alleging occupational licensure impermissibly restricts freedom of speech. This Comment addresses these free speech challenges, arguing occupational licensure statutes, at least for medical professions, only incidentally impacts free speech—if at all—by permissibly regulating medical professional conduct necessarily requiring speech. Within, the authors ultimately describe, demonstrate, and recommend a legal framework, the other factor/personal nexus approach. This approach helps determine the point at which speech becomes regulable professional conduct subject to licensing, utilizing the nutrition and dietetics profession, and …

Now And Again: Reappraising Disability Leave As An Accommodation, Ryan H. Nelson

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Opt-In Arbitration: A Functional Alternative To The Fair Act, Garrett Meisman

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Working While Mothering During The Pandemic And Beyond, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Although combining work and family has never been easy for women, working while mothering during the pandemic was close to impossible. When COVID-19 caused most workplaces to shut down, many women were laid off. But many women were forced to work from home alongside their children, who could not attend daycare or school. Mothers tried valiantly to combine a full day’s work on top of caring for young children and helping school-aged children with remote school. But many found this balance difficult, leading to women’s lowest workforce participation rate in over forty years. And even women who did not quit …

Secrets, Lies, And Lessons From The Theranos Scandal, Lauren Rogal

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Theranos, Inc., the unicorn startup blood-testing corporation, was ultimately laid low by a former employee whistleblower. The experience of that whistleblower during and after her employment illuminates detrimental secrecy practices within the startup sector, as well as legal and practical barriers to corporate accountability. Theranos sought to avoid exposure by cultivating an environment of secrecy and intimidation, and by aggressively extracting and enforcing nondisclosure agreements. The legal landscape for whistleblowers facilitated this strategy: while whistleblowing employees enjoyed certain protections under anti-retaliation statutes, trade secrets statutes, and common law contract principles, these protections were neither readily accessible nor certain. This Article …

Working While Mothering During The Pandemic And Beyond, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

Although combining work and family has never been easy for women, working while mothering during the pandemic was close to impossible. When COVID-19 caused most workplaces to shut down, many women were laid off. But many women were forced to work from home alongside their children, who could not attend daycare or school. Mothers tried valiantly to combine a full day’s work on top of caring for young children and helping school-aged children with remote school. But many found this balance difficult, leading to women’s lowest workforce participation rate in over forty years. And even women who did not quit …

The Intersectional Race And Gender Effects Of The Pandemic In Legal Academia, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic helped to expose the inequities that already existed between students at every level of education based on race and socioeconomic class status, it has exposed existing inequities among faculty based on gender and the intersection of gender and race. The legal academy has been no exception to this reality. The widespread loss of childcare and the closing of both public and private primary and secondary schools have disproportionately harmed women law faculty, who are more likely than their male peers to work a “second shift” in terms of childcare and household responsibilities. Similarly, women law …

Franchisor Power As Employment Control, Andrew Elmore, Kati Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

Labor and employment laws are systematically underenforced in low-wage, franchised workplaces. Union contracts, and the benefits and protections they provide, are nonexistent. The Fight for Fifteen movement has brought attention to the low wages, systemic violations of workers’ rights, and lack of collective representation in fast-food franchises. Given that franchisees can be judgment-proof and cannot set industry standards, the deterrence, remedial, and collective bargaining goals of labor and employment laws can depend on holding the franchisor (the brand) responsible under the joint employer doctrine. In a series of cases, however, a dominant approach has emerged that essentially foreclosed the possibility …

Vol. 38, No. 3, Tom Bradley, Mark Bennett, John R. Russell

The Illinois Public Employee Relations Report

Interest Arbitration during Economic and Social Crisis

By Tom Bradley, Mark Bennett, and John R. Russell

Recent Developments

A Wrinkle In Title Vii: Rigid Evidentiary Requirements And Inadequate Causation Tests Trammel Women's Sex-Plus-Age Claims, Lindsey Cook

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Capitalization Of The Global Green Economy: An Analysis Of South Carolina's Current Foreign Direct Investment Efforts And Suggestions For Continued Sustainability, William E. Hilger

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Harassment: A Doctrinal Examination Of The Law, An Empirical Examination Of Employer Liability, And A Question About Ndas— Because Complex Problems Do Not Have Simple Solutions, Michael Heise, David S. Sherwyn

Indiana Law Journal

The #MeToo movement casts critical light on the pervasive nature of sexual harassment, particularly in the employment context, and continues to motivate a number of initiatives that address important social and workplace ills. The problems this movement has uncovered, however, run much deeper and likely exceed the scope and capacity of many of the proposed “fixes” it has inspired. Worse still, however, is that some of the proposed fixes may prove counterproductive. This Article examines the history and development of the relevant employment laws, empirically assesses judicial holdings on the employers’ affirmative defense to liability, and argues that many employees …

Labor And Employment, W. Jonathan Martin Ii, Patricia-Anne Brownback

Mercer Law Review

This Article focuses on case law concerning federal laws pertaining to labor and employment. The following is a discussion of those opinions.

Better To Analyze A Statute Than To Psychoanalyze Congress? Eleventh Circuit Widens Circuit Split Over Proper Causation Standard In False Claims Act Retaliation Cases, Douglas E. Comin

Mercer Law Review

“You’re fired!” Employees across America hear these words every day. Usually, the federal government has no interest in whether or why an employee is fired. But when companies that do business with the federal government improperly fire employees for reporting fraud, the interests of the federal government and the general public are directly implicated. The implications are clear: employees suffer the tribulations of wrongful termination, the government feels the strain on its resources, and American taxpayers ultimately foot the bill.

Healthcare providers and defense contractors are some of the federal government’s largest business partners. Because the federal government is a …

Age’S Influence On Workplace Safety, Kelly Muhammad, Cheryl Marcham

Publications

According to the National Safety Council (NSC, n.d.), the total cost of work injuries in 2019 was an estimated $171 billion. This estimate includes wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses and employers’ uninsured costs. In that same year, an estimated 105 million workdays were lost due to injuries (NSC, n.d.). This report does not provide any specific details or any characteristics about the injured. However, knowledge of certain characteristics of the injured such as age can be critical information. This type of information could be useful in the development of workplace hazard prevention and mitigation programs.

Whose Job Is It Anyway: How The Statutory And Regulatory Scheme Prohibiting Employers From Hiring Undocumented Workers Falls Short Of Achieving Its Intended Purpose, Antonio Solomon

Mercer Law Review

Illegal immigration and jobs are and have been hot-button issues in American politics for quite some time. The further politicization of immigration policies and immigrants themselves in the 2016 presidential election cycle only exacerbated the prescience of America’s illegal immigration woes. Inflammatory rhetoric suggesting that illegal immigrants are “stealing” jobs from American citizens permeated the political landscape in 2016. Rhetoric, which, at the same time, gives little credence to the fact that some American companies and industries actively lure immigrant workers as a source of cheap labor, which, in turn, allows those companies to offer their goods and services to …