Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Flexible Scheduling And Gender Equiality: The Working Families Flexibility Act Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Lane C. Powell

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The Working Families Flexibility Act (“WFFA”) as proposed in 2012 would create a federal right for employees to request flexible work arrangements. However, the bill contains no private right of action for employees to enforce this new right. By reframing the WFFA as an anti-discrimination statute targeting unconstitutional sex discrimination on the part of the States, the WFFA could be upheld under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, allowing Congress to provide a private right of action for both private and state employees. This Note uses the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Family Medical Leave Act in Hibbs and Coleman …

The Collective Bargaining Chips Are Down: How Wisconsin’S Collective Bargaining Restrictions Place The U.S. In Violation Of International Labor Laws, Amanda Webster

University of Baltimore Journal of International Law

On the surface, the United States serves as an international advocate and supporter of the basic principles of the International Labor Organization, which are to promote social justice and human rights through globally humane working conditions. Yet, on a deeper level, there exists a strained and contradictory relationship between the U.S. and the ILO. Despite being the largest ILO member state and a principal policymaker, the U.S. continues to refrain from ratifying key international labor law treaties. This inaction enables U.S. state and federal bodies to enact and uphold legislation that directly violate existing international labor law obligations. U.S. laws …

The Military's Workplace Flexibility Framework, Marcy L. Karin, Katie Onachila

Journal Articles

Workplace flexibility is a tool the military may use to support its operations, improve the recruitment and retention of military personnel, and fulfill its obligation to support veterans and military families. The return of combat troops from Iraq provides a valuable catalyst to take stock of the use of workplace flexibility in the U.S. military and employers supporting the military community. While the unique critical needs of the military are an inescapable variable when creating laws and policies, the military must meet the workplace flexibility needs of its services members and their families to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of …

Productions Chains And Workplace Law Violations: The Case Of Apple And Foxconn , Hilary K. Josephs

Global Business Law Review

For decades U.S. based multinational companies have outsourced production of goods to developing countries with low labor costs and weak implementation of protective legislation. The consumer electronics giant Apple is a prime example: it outsources virtually all of its manufacturing to companies such as Foxconn, a Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer, which employs over a million assembly line workers in China. In the last several years Foxconn's operations have been under scrutiny for violation of Chinese domestic employment law. This paper focuses on the problem of compulsory overtime, a violation of both Chinese law and international labor standards, and various measures …

What Marriage Equality Arguments Portend For Domestic Partner Employee Benefits, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Procedural Hurdles And Thwarted Efficiency: Immigration Relief In Wage And Hour Collective Actions, Llezlie Green

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Wage theft and its frequent exploitative companions, trafficking and involuntary servitude, have seen substantial increases in recent years. Low-wage workers often bear the brunt of these practices. Vulnerable populations, such as immigrant workers, and more specifically, undocumented workers, experience wage theft and other forms of workplace-related exploitation at alarmingly high rates. Individual adjudications of these claims are neither efficient nor, in many cases, feasible, given attorneys’ aversion to shouldering the risks and costs in cases that may yield only limited attorneys’ fees. The collective adjudication of Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claims, however, largely resolves these challenges and provides an …

Reimagining The Law Of Self-Employment: A Comparative Perspective, Jayesh Rathod, Michal Skapski

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

U.S. employment law has traditionally disfavored bright-line rules to distinguish between traditional “employees” and independent contractors, instead relying on more flexible criteria, to be applied on a case-by-case basis. This fluidity has enabled employers to structure these relationships – and the corresponding bundle of worker rights and benefits – in ways that serve their own material and normative interests. Indeed, recent employment law literature has noted a dramatic shift towards independent contracting and contingent worker schemes in the U.S., even when the actual workplace dynamics are more akin to an employer-employee relationship. These same trends are now visible on the …

Using Border Trade Adjustments To Address Labor Rights Concerns Under The Wto, Micah Globerson

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Divorcing The Defense Of Marriage Act: Judicial Tensions In Upholding The Legislated Preclusion Of Federal Same-Sex Marital Rights, Linda L. Barkacs, Sherry S. Tehrani, Craig B. Barkacs

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

The Future Of The Student Anti-Sweatshop Movement: Providing Access To U.S. Courts For Garment Workers Worldwide, Allie Robbins

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

The Military’S Workplace Flexibility Framework, Marcy L. Karin, Katie Onachila

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

A Preferred Approach: How Minority-Owned Businesses Can Combat Union Discrimination, Edward Frischling

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Flexible Workplace Solutions For Low-Wage Hourly Workers: A Framework For A National Conversation, Liz Watson, Jennifer E. Swanberg

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Forgotten Fathers: The Disparate Impact Of The Fmla’S Unpaid Parental Leave Provision, Elizabeth Moran

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Immigration And The Vulnerable Worker: We Built This Country On Cheap Labor, Leila Higgins

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission And Structural Reform Of The American Workplace, Margo Schlanger, Pauline T. Kim

Law & Economics Working Papers

In 2011, the United States Supreme Court struck down a class action suit alleging that Wal-Mart stores discriminated against female employees in pay and promotion decisions, making it more difficult to obtain certification of private employment discrimination class actions. As a result, the role of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in seeking structural reform of the workplace, always of substantial influence, has gained in comparative importance. Yet there is remarkably little written about the EEOC’s large-scale injunctive cases. This Article addresses this major gap in scholarship.

Using both qualitative case studies and a new quantitative data-set, we test existing theories …

Whose Social Network Account: A Trade Secret Approach To Allocating Rights, Zoe Argento

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Who has the superior right to a social network account? This is the question in a growing number of disputes between employers and workers over social network accounts. The problem has no clear legal precedent. Although the disputes implicate rights under trademark, copyright, and privacy law, these legal paradigms fail to address the core issue. At base, disputes over social network accounts are disputes over the right to access the people, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, who follow an account. This Article evaluates the problem from the perspective of the public interest in social network use, particularly the …

Baring Inequality: Revisiting The Legalization Debate Through The Lens Of Strippers' Rights, Sheerine Alemzadeh

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The debate over legalization of prostitution has fractured the feminist legal community for over a quarter century. Pro-legalization advocates promote the benefits attending government regulation of prostitution, including the ability to better prosecute sex crimes, increase public health and educational resources for individuals in the commercial sex trade, and apply labor and safety regulations to the commercial sex industry in the same manner as they are applied to other businesses. Some anti-legalization advocates identify themselves as "new abolitionists," and argue that government recognition of prostitution reinforces gender inequality. Often, this debate is framed in the hypothetical: What would happen if …

The Role Of Networks, Mentors, And The Law In Overcoming Barriers To Organizational Leadership For Women With Children, Terry Morehead Dworkin, Aarti Ramaswami, Cindy A. Schipani

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The 2012 election brought headlines such as "Another 'Year of Women' in Congress." Although the number of women in the highest legislative offices increased, their numbers are still significantly lower than those of men. Fewer than 100 women hold office in both houses of Congress. Corporate America similarly reflects significantly low female leadership numbers. For example, "fewer than 20% of finance industry directors and executives are women, and [there are] no women leading the 20 biggest U.S. banks and securities firms." Women make up nearly half the workforce and hold 60% of bachelor degrees, yet they hold only 14% of …

Implausible Injuries: Wal-Mart V. Dukes And The Future Of Class Actions And Employment Discrimination Cases, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

In 2001, a class action suit was brought against Wal-Mart, where plaintiffs sought to certify a class of every woman who did work for the giant retailer or had worked for it since 1998, seeking relief related to promotion and pay policies. Plaintiffs alleged that they were all discriminated against on the basis of sex. The Supreme Court agreed with Wal-Mart, finding that the class did not meet requirements for class actions set by Rule 23. This article explores the reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s split decision that the class did not meet the commonality standard, which relied significantly on …