Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

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 …

The "Crisis" In Retirement Security: Social Security Is The Answer, Not The Problem, 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 719 (2013), Martha Holstein, Kristen Pavle

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Challenges Women Face In Retirement: Improving Social Security, Pensions, And Ssi, 46 J. Marshall L. Rev. 749 (2013), Joan Entmacher, Amy Matsui

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

"It's Not You, It's Me" - When Are Client Companies Liable For Staffing Firms' Discriminatory Hiring Practices?, Lara Samuels

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regretting Roth? Why And How The Supreme Court Could Deprive Tenured Public Teachers Of Due Process Rights In Employment, Karl D. Camillucci

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Cognitive Illiberalism, Summary Judgement, And Title Vii: An Examination Of Ricci V. Destefano, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Sins Of Hosanna-Tabor, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court has lost sight of individual religious freedom. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, the Court for the first time recognized the ministerial exception, a court-created doctrine that holds that the First Amendment requires the dismissal of many employment discrimination cases against religious employers. The Court ruled unanimously that Cheryl Perich, an elementary school teacher who was fired after she tried to return to school from disability leave, could not pursue an antidiscrimination lawsuit against her employer.

This Article criticizes Hosanna-Tabor as a profound misinterpretation of the First Amendment. The Court mistakenly protected religious institutions' …

Masculine Law Firms, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This article describes the masculine culture in law firms and analyzes how this culture harms both men and women because of their gender. Part II explains MMT, and analyzes the masculine practices that exist in modern law firms. Part III studies a lawsuit brought by a law firm associate, a white male father of two who allegedly was fired in retaliation for taking leave under the Family Medical Leave Act and because of his failure to adhere to the macho stereotypes prevalent in the law firm. Part IV analyzes how the law should respond to masculine norms, and suggests that …

Masculinity, Labor, And Sexual Power, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

This Essay focuses on gender and sexuality to analyze Hannah Rosin's thesis in the The End of Men. It relies in large part on feminist and masculinities theories to consider how men and women may both suffer gendered disadvantage. It looks specifically at Las Vegas, a market that is sexualized, in order to complicate Rosin's narrative, and to create a better understanding of what is happening in the U.S. workforce. While the Las Vegas market is not representative of markets across the country, it is economically and socially significant and, with the expansion of the casino and gaming industries …

Same Law, Different Day: The Last Thirty Years Of Wage Litigation And Its Impact On Low-Wage Workers, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

There can be little doubt that actions to recover lost wages from employers have increased dramatically in the last thirty years. Since the 1970’s, American workers have become subject to a “24/7 marketplace workweek.” Off-the-clock work, misclassification, contingent jobs, and wage theft have become far more prevalent in the last three decades. A few snapshots in time reflect this trend. In 1997, some 1,600 wage suits were filed in federal court. In 2007, just ten years later, the number of wage suits jumped to 7,310. In just one year, 2006-2007, the number of filed wage cases increased by 73 percent. …

What's Left To Remedy Wage Theft? How Arbitration Mandates That Bar Class Actions Impact Low-Wage Workers, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

For low-wage workers who suffer “wage theft” – employers illegally withholding portions of their wages – the dollars missing from their paychecks violate existing law and significantly impact the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Despite this dire societal problem, the Supreme Court continues “closing the courtroom doors” in two ways: allowing employers to force workers out of court and into private arbitration; and prohibiting aggregate claims. Such trends, in combination, silence wage theft, leaving many claims unheard while unscrupulous employers gain direct advantage.

This Article explains how various procedural rulings have combined to prevent meaningful redress for wage theft. …

"Sexting" And Surveillance: How Smartphones Change Workplace Harassment, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Competition Policy And The Great Depression: Lessons Learned And A New Way Forward, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

The recent Great Recession has shaken the nation’s faith in free markets and inspired various forms of actual or proposed regulatory intervention displacing free competition. Proponents of such intervention often claim that such interference with free-market outcomes will help foster economic recovery and thus macroeconomic stability by, for instance, enhancing the “purchasing power” of workers or reducing consumer prices. Such arguments for increased economic centralization echo those made during the Great Depression, when proponents of regulatory intervention claimed that such interference with economic liberty and free competition, including suspension of the antitrust laws, was necessary to foster economic recovery. Indeed, …

The Emerging Reality Of Social Media: Erosion Of Individual Privacy Through Cyber-Vetting And Law’S Inability To Catch Up, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 551 (2013), Saby Ghoshray

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The rise of social media means that data about a large number of people is available in public and quasi-public digital locations. Employers, keen on taking advantage of this additional data to decrease the risk associated with an offer of employment, are engaging in “cyber-vetting”—non-consenting social media searches conducted by third parties or the employers themselves. To the extent that current law applies to this practice, the regulation it provides is weak and attacks only part of the problem. Left unchecked, cyber-vetting has the potential to fundamentally alter the scope of prospective employees’ rights. This article surveys the legal and …