Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Information Technology And Learning On-The-Job, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

Economists disagree how much technology raises demand for workers with pre-existing skills. But technology might affect wages another way: through skills learned on the job. Using instrumental variables on 9 panels of workers from 1989 to 2013, this paper estimates that workers who use information technology (IT) have wage growth that is about 2% greater than non-IT workers, all else equal, implying substantial learning. This effect persists over time, implying sustained productivity growth from IT. Also, it benefits workers both with and without college degrees. Because many more college-educated workers use IT, college wages grow faster, contributing to economic inequality.

Mdc Rests. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 76 (Oct. 27, 2016), Alysa Grimes

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

To “provide” health benefits under the Minimum Wage Amendment, an employer need only offer to employees (rather than enroll them in) a qualifying health benefit plan. Tips are not included in an employee’s gross taxable income for calculating maximum health benefit plan premiums.

Perry V. Terrible Herbst, Inc., Nev. Adv. Op. 75 (Oct. 27, 2016), Wesley Lemay Jr.

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Minimum Wage Amendment (MWA) of the Nevada Constitution does not have a specific statute of limitations provision. Because the MWA is closely analogous to recovery for back pay under NRS 608.260, the two-year statute of limitations provision in NRS 608.260 applies, and not the catch-all four-year period from NRS 11.220.

Limited License Legal Technicians: Non-Lawyers Get Access To The Legal Profession, But Clients Won’T Get Access To Justice, Julian Aprile

Seattle University Law Review

Washington Limited License Legal Technicians (LLLTs) are non-lawyers who will supposedly help to close “the wide and ever-growing gap in necessary legal and law related services for low and moderate income persons.” However, LLLTs will not close the access to justice gap because “[t]here are no protections . . . to ensure that legal technicians will actually provide services to the poor, as opposed to selling their services to those who can most afford them,” and LLLTs are “not going to have the competency to actually do for the poor what needs to be done.”

Additionally, the modifications of the …

Slavery Under The Thirteenth Amendment: Race And The Law Of Crime And Punishment In The Post-Civil War South, Peter Wallenstein

Louisiana Law Review

The article discusses how the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution expressly permitted a recurrence of slavery, provided only that such enslavement constitutes a punishment for violating a criminal statute. It reports new forms of slavery that spread across the South in ways more or less consistent with the language of the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Customer Is Not Always Right: Balancing Worker And Customer Welfare In Antitrust Law, Clayton J. Masterman

Journal Articles

A natural consequence of employer restraints of trade that decrease wages is lower prices. Under antitrust law, courts evaluate most such restraints of trade under the rule of reason. This Note argues that the rule of reason’s focus on consumer welfare and the natural price decrease that follows from employer restraints of trade cause underenforcement of antitrust law against anticompetitive employer conduct. Such a result is anomalous, because the consumer welfare standard that permeates antitrust law should protect employees as much as customers that purchase goods.

To solve the under-enforcement problem, this Note proposes that courts analyzing a restraint of …

I Swear! From Shoptalk To Social Media: The Top Ten National Labor Relations Board Profanity Cases, Christine Neylon O'Brien

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article curates and analyzes ten recent cases where the NLRB decided whether or not § 7 protected employee swearing, with a view toward defining the implications of these decisions for employers and employees in terms of employer rules and discipline, and employee rights and limits thereon. The Article outlines the NLRB’s role and perspective in cases where employees are disciplined or discharged for engaging in profanity at work and/or on social media when the conduct in question is otherwise protected concerted activity. The Article summarizes the facts in each case while analyzing the legal framework that the NLRB …

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari. Lavigne V. Cajun Deep Foundations, L.L.C., 137 S.Ct. 1328 (2017) (No. 16-464), 2016 Wl 5929996, Eric Schnapper, J. Arthur Smith, Iii, Justin M. Delaune

Court Briefs

QUESTIONS PRESENTED (1) To establish a prima facie case of discriminatory termination, is a plaintiff required to show that he was replaced by someone outside his or her protected group? (2) Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a plaintiff prior to:bringing a civil action must first file a charge with the EEOC, usually within 300 days of the action complained of. The Question Presented is: Where a claimant files a timely Title VII charge asserting that employer conduct was the result of a particular unlawful motive, may the claimant after the end of the charge-filing period …

The Settlement Of Labor Disputes In Industries Affected With A National Interest, James J. Graham

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

A Reconsideration Of The Right To Strike, James Graham

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Vol. 33, No. 4, Thomas M. Melody

The Illinois Public Employee Relations Report

Labor-Management Cooperation In A Fire Department Closure: The Highwood Story, by Thomas M. Melody

Recent Developents

Digital Self-Ownership: A Publicity-Rights Framework For Determining Employee Social Media Rights, Susan Park, Patricia Sánchez Abril

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Imagine an upandcoming company hires you as one of its first employees. Passionate about your employer, you put in long hours doing everything from marketing to accounting to event planning. You are also proud of your employer's product, so you begin to publicize it to your friends through your social network accounts. (In fact, the company's founder is also one of your Facebook friends.) You tell your friends about the product launch, invite them to marketing events, and eventually blog about your industry, amassing a significant social media following while creating buzz about your employer. But one day, during layoffs …

Improving Employment Standards And Their Enforcement In Ontario: A Research Brief Addressing Options Identified In The Interim Report Of The Changing Workplaces Review, Leah F. Vosko, John Grundy, Eric Tucker, Andrea M. Noack, Alan Hall, Mark P. Thomas, Rebecca Casey, Kiran Mirchandani, Guliz Akkaymak

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

The quality of employment available to Ontarians is a growing concern among legislators, policymakers, and the general public alike. There is widespread recognition that precarious employment and the challenges posed by the associated realignment of risks, costs and power relations between employees and employers require improvements to employees’ legislative protection. Ontario’s Changing Workplaces Review (CWR) affords us an opportunity to take stock of important changes taking place the province’s labour market. As the Terms of Reference introduced at the outset of the CWR note, “far too many workers are experiencing greater precariousness” in employment in Ontario today than in the …

Human Capital Discrimination, Law Firm Inequality, And The Limits Of Title Vii, Kevin Woodson

Cardozo Law Review

This Article advances the legal scholarship on workplace inequality through use of evidence derived from interviews of a sample of black attorneys who have worked in large, predominantly white law firms. It does so by calling attention to the manner in which these firms operate as sites of human capital discrimination-patterns of mistreatment that deprive many black associates of access to the substantive work opportunities crucial to their professional development and career advancement. This Article identifies the specific arrangements and practices within these firms that facilitate human capital discrimination and describes the varied, often subtle harms and burdens that they …

The New Labor Law, Kate Andrias

Articles

Labor law is failing. Disfigured by courts, attacked by employers, and rendered inapt by a global and fissured economy, many of labor law’s most ardent proponents have abandoned it altogether. And for good reason: the law that governs collective organization and bargaining among workers has little to offer those it purports to protect. Several scholars have suggested ways to breathe new life into the old regime, yet their proposals do not solve the basic problem. Labor law developed for the New Deal does not provide solutions to today’s inequities. But all hope is not lost. From the remnants of the …

Ptsd, Tbi, And Oth Discharges: A Case Study Of A Young Service Member, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pelear Por La Dignidad: La Lucha De Las Mujeres Trabajadoras Sexuales Voluntarias Por Derechos Laborales En Un Clima Estigmatizado Políticamente / To Fight For Dignity: The Fight Of Female Voluntary Sex Workers For Labor Rights In A Politically Stigmatized Climate, Rosalind Jones

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Argentina is a country with a rich history of social movements and popular mobilization. Currently, the issue of women’s equality is highly prevalent in the national and political dialogue. An area that is frequently referenced as a divide in the feminist movement is sex work. Argentina has adopted a series of laws and regulations that have created an ‘abolitionist’ political atmosphere, outlawing the sexual exploitation of individuals and persecuting ‘pimps’, per se. The politics surrounding sex work, on paper, are meant to eliminate human trafficking rings and lower the amount of victims exploited through trafficking. However, the application of the …

How Computer Automation Affects Occupations: Technology, Jobs, And Skills, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

This paper investigates basic relationships between technology and occupations. Building a general occupational model, I look at detailed occupations since 1980 to explore whether computers are related to job losses or other sources of wage inequality. Occupations that use computers grow faster, not slower. This is true even for highly routine and mid-wage occupations. Estimates reject computers as a source of significant net technological unemployment or job polarization. But computerized occupations substitute for other occupations, shifting employment and requiring new skills. Because new skills are costly to learn, computer use is associated with substantially greater within-occupation wage inequality.

Friedrichs And The Move Toward Private Ordering Of Public Employee Wages And Benefits, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

In its recent Harris v. Quinn opinion the U.S. Supreme Court (in particular Justice Alito) seemed to welcome a future opportunity to reconsider the 1977 landmark Abood decision in which public sector closed shop employees were not required to join a union but could be subject to fees that cover the costs of “collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment purposes.” Supporters of the Abood approach argue that it is a reasonable compromise that prevents non-members from free riding on the union’s efforts (i.e. enjoying the wages and benefits negotiated by the union without sharing the costs incurred.) Detractors and …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Professor Cecily Banks's Post: Time To Teach Business: September 16, 2016, Cecily Banks

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.