Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Janus's Two Faces, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, and endings. He is often depicted as having two faces, one looking to the future and one to the past. The Supreme Court’s Janus v AFSCME case of last Term is fittingly named.Stunning in its disregard of principles of stare decisis, Janus overruled the forty-year-old precedent Abood v Detroit Board of Education.The Janus decision marks the end of the post – New Deal compromise with respect to public sector unions and the First Amendment. Looking to the future, Janus lays the groundwork for further attack on …

An American Approach To Social Democracy: The Forgotten Promise Of The Fair Labor Standards Act, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

There is a growing consensus among scholars and public policy experts that fundamental labor law reform is necessary in order to reduce the nation’s growing wealth gap. According to conventional wisdom, however, a social democratic approach to labor relations is uniquely un-American – in deep conflict with our traditions and our governing legal regime. This Article calls into question that conventional account. It details a largely forgotten moment in American history: when the early Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established industry committees of unions, business associations, and the public to set wages on an industry-by-industry basis. Alongside the National Labor …

Peril And Possibility: Strikes, Rights, And Legal Change In The Era Of Trump, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

Thank you, I am delighted to be here. When Professor Fisk and the editors of the Journal asked if I would be willing to give the Feller Lecture this year, I did not hesitate for a moment. It goes without saying that, for a labor law professor, to give a lecture that commemorates David Feller is truly a special honor. While I never had the chance to meet him, his work as an advocate and scholar serves as an example for everyone in the field. I am grateful to the Journal and to the Feller family for the opportunity to …

Disabling Ada Retaliation Claims, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

In this article, I set out to explore what effect the expansion of the definition of “disability” would have on the post-Amendments retaliation cases. What I discovered surprised me. Despite the common belief that retaliation cases are often more successful than cases alleging status-based discrimination, this did not prove to be true with respect to this dataset of ADA retaliation cases. In fact, as indicated by the title of this article, courts are continuing to disable employees’ retaliation claims under the ADA. Plaintiffs lost (i.e., did not survive a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment) in three-quarters …

Explaining "Not Disabled" Cases Ten Years After The Adaaa: A Story Of Ignorance, Incompetence, And Possibly Animus, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

I set out to find and read every case that addressed the definition of disability from the point my last article left off until the present (January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2018). This resulted in 976 cases. Of those 976 cases, the court erroneously held that the plaintiff was not disabled in 210 of them...

This Article attempts to explain what went wrong—why did courts incorrectly hold that the plaintiff was not disabled in more than 200 cases? The answer, I’ve concluded, is a little bit of ignorance (courts and parties that were apparently unaware that the ADAAA was …

A New Look At The Ada's Undue Hardship Defense, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

...This Article will not only summarize and attempt to categorize the undue hardship cases but will also identify three trends that become apparent when engaging in a thorough analysis of this body of cases.

This Article will proceed in four additional parts. Part II will provide the background of the undue hardship provision, including the statutory language and its regulations, the legislative history, and the undue hardship cases decided under the precursor to the ADA—the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Part III will delve into the undue hardship cases under the ADA. Even though most people think about undue hardship as …

Applying Old Rules To New Tools: Employment Discrimination Law In The Age Of Algorithms, Matthew U. Scherer, Allan G. King, Marko J. Mrkonich

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Immigration Or Alienage? How States Can Legislate To Protect Undocumented Agricultural Workers, Adam Hutchinson

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

A Look At How United States Immigration And Labor Policy Affect The Foreign Workforce On American Farms, Benjamin A. Dennison

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Arbitration As The Ideal Method Of Labor Law Dispute Resolution: A Case Study Using 14 Penn Plaza Llc, Et Al. V. Steven Pyett, Et Al., Douglas Shribman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

Alternative Remedies For Undocumented Workers Left Behind In A Post-Hoffman Plastic Era, Rachel S. Steber

Catholic University Law Review

Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935 in order to level the bargaining power of employees and employers to prevent burdening the flow of commerce and depressing workers’ wages. The NLRA vests the administration of promulgating the goals of the NLRA in the National Labor Relations Board (Board), broadly stating that the Board should take such affirmative action as necessary to effectuate the policies of the Act.

In 1935, however, Congress could not predict the future demographic makeup of the American workforce, and in its definition of an “employee” as covered under the NLRA, the statute makes …

The Compliance Process, Veronica Root Martinez

Journal Articles

Even as regulators and prosecutors proclaim the importance of effective compliance programs, failures persist. Organizations fail to ensure that they and their agents comply with legal and regulatory requirements, industry practices, and their own internal policies and norms. From the companies that provide our news, to the financial institutions that serve as our bankers, to the corporations that make our cars, compliance programs fail to prevent misconduct each and every day. The causes of these compliance failures are multifaceted and include general enforcement deficiencies, difficulties associated with overseeing compliance programs within complex organizations, and failures to establish a culture of …

Antidiscriminatory Algorithms, Stephanie Bornstein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Can algorithms be used to advance equality goals in the workplace? A handful of legal scholars have raised concerns that the use of big data at work may lead to protected class discrimination that could fall outside the reach of current antidiscrimination law. Existing scholarship suggests that, because algorithms are “facially neutral,” they pose no problem of unequal treatment. As a result, algorithmic discrimination cannot be challenged using a disparate treatment theory of liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). Instead, it presents a problem of unequal outcomes, subject to challenge using Title VII’s …

2018 Survey Of Rhode Island Case Law

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Eleven Things They Don’T Tell You About Law & Economics: An Informal Introduction To Political Economy And Law, Frank Pasquale

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

Many legal scholars have critiqued the dominant law and economics paradigm. However, important work is all too often neglected because it is not popularized in an accessible form. This Article features experts who synthesize their key insights into memorable and concise vignettes. Our 11 Things project is inspired by the work of the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang, who distilled many facets of his work into a book called 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. That book was a runaway success, translated for markets around the globe, because it challenged conventional economic reasoning with a series of short and …

Legislatively Overturning Fort Stewart Schools: The Trump Administration's Assault On Federal Employee Collective Bargaining, Richard J. Hirn

Indiana Law Journal

In his Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Submission, President Trump noted that about 60 percent of Federal employees belong to a union and lamented that dealing with Federal employee unions ostensibly “consume[s] considerable management time and taxpayer resources, and may negatively impact efficiency, effectiveness, cost of operations, and employee accountability and performance.” Although he acknowledged that Federal employee unions can negotiate over fewer matters than can unions in the private sector, he nonetheless claimed that collective bargaining contracts can negatively impact agency performance, workplace productivity, and employee satisfaction. The President told Congress that “[a]gency managers will be encouraged to restore management …

International Labor Law And Its Others: Governance By Norm Versus Governance By Knowledge, Liam Mchugh-Russell

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This essay explores how such “governance by knowledge” interacts with international law’s “governance by norm,” through a case study of the World Bank’s Doing Business project and the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s responses to it. I contend that Doing Business ultimately rests on “bad science,” and thus offers a potent illustration of the power wielded by actors who claim “technical” knowledge. I argue that those who fail to engage with the technicalities of the knowledge claims that ground projects like Doing Business, and who instead meet such projects primarily through the idiom of (international) legal normativity, may have already lost …

Delay, Deny, Wait Till They Die: Balancing Veterans’ Rights And Non-Adversarial Procedures In The Va Disability Benefits System, Hugh Mcclean

SMU Law Review

The refrain “Delay, Deny, Wait Till They Die” is more than a slogan for disabled American veterans. It is a battle cry for soldiers, sailors, and airmen who have long put aside their armaments but remain entangled in the unending appeals process of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) disability benefits system. When Congress created a system for the fair and equitable distribution of military benefits, it did so with the intent that the system be non-adversarial. Congress did not want disabled veterans pitted against the nation that they had sought to defend in litigation over disability benefits. However, defining …

Trade Openness And Antitrust Law, Anu Bradford, Adam S. Chilton

Faculty Scholarship

Openness to international trade and adoption of antitrust laws can both curb anti-competitive behavior. But scholars have long debated the relationship between the two. Some argue that greater trade openness makes antitrust unnecessary, while others contend that antitrust laws are still needed to realize the benefits of trade liberalization. Data limitations have made this debate largely theoretical to date. We study the relationship between trade and antitrust empirically using new data on antitrust laws and enforcement activities. We find that trade openness and stringency of antitrust laws are positively correlated from 1950 to 2010 overall, but the positive correlation disappears …

The Federalism Challenges Of Protecting Medical Privacy In Workers' Compensation, Ani B. Satz

Faculty Articles

This Article is the first to address the challenges of federalism in protecting medical privacy in workers’ compensation after the promulgation of the HPR and to propose legal change. The Article argues that workers’ compensation programs must align with the federal privacy protections of the HPR and proposes actions for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and states to remedy departures. Part I discusses the complex relationship between the HPR and workers’ compensation. This relationship is often misunderstood by legislatures and courts, compounding the challenges of federalism in this area. Specifically, Part I addresses the HPR’s § …