Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Labor Law, Ownership, And The Firm, Sanjukta Paul

Articles

In shaping economic coordination within and across both firms and markets, one significant action of law is to allocate privileges or rights between people or groups of people. These include the right to coordinate with other people or groups of people in particular ways regarding core economic decisions-a type of activity that is not always or in all circumstances legally permissible. An area that makes this more general action of law especially concrete is antitrust or competition law, with its collection of "exemptions." Antitrust's formal and informal exemptions quite directly allocate economic coordination rights, for particular kinds of activity, and …

Towards The Faa's Next Century: Clarifying Disclosure Requirements In Arbitration, Andrea K. Schneider, Brian Farkas

Articles

This essay provides a roadmap to the current landscape of neutrality and disclosure. It then suggests three possible reforms to the FAA that would provide better guidance to arbitrators, parties, and courts. Moreover, this essay argues that if the FAA cannot be sufficiently amended, states should take the lead. States can continue to more clearly outline disclosure requirements and enforce clearer standards than the current version of the FAA.

Three Essays On The Economics Of Crime And Education, Joy Kanengiser

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The first chapter investigates the labor market impacts of the Clean Slate Law, a policy designed to reduce barriers to entry by automating the sealing of criminal records. Using IPUMS CPS data from six states, I employ a difference-in-differences framework with individual fixed effects and an event study design to identify changes in employment outcomes. I find that the Clean Slate policy increases employment by 0.33 percentage points and weekly hours worked by 0.44 hours (approximately 24 minutes). Full-time employment rises, while self-employment declines by 0.12 percentage points, suggesting a shift from informal to more stable, formal jobs. These employment …

Algorithmic Governance And Nondiscrimination Rights In The Workplace, Pauline Kim

Scholarship@WashULaw

This chapter analyzes existing legal responses to the problem of discriminatory algorithms in the workplace. As firms increasingly rely on algorithms or automated decision systems, a type of artificial intelligence, to manage their workforces, concerns have grown that these tools can systematically exclude historically disadvantaged groups. One response is to rely on traditional anti-discrimination law. These laws clearly prohibit certain forms of algorithmic discrimination; however, the complex, opaque nature of algorithms makes identifying and proving discriminatory harms challenging. Another response looks to broader frameworks of data protection and algorithmic regulation to protect against workplace discrimination. These initiatives are promising, but …

Digital Transformation Of The Maritime Labour Law : Srems Complaints & Claims Legal, Digital Solution, Case Study Of Morocco, Rida El Missaoui

World Maritime University Dissertations

This Master’s dissertation investigates the strong need to reform and digitalize the mechanisms of monitoring and follow-up of the on-board compliance on seafarer’s rights and obligations through a legal-digital tool.

Technology-Facilitated Labor Trafficking Power And Control Wheel, Julie A. Dahlstrom

Faculty Scholarship

This wheel is based on the Article, "Digital Servitude", forthcoming in the Boston College Law Review.

Rebalancing Retirement: How 401(K) Plans Exacerbate Inequality And What We Can Do About It, Quinn Curtis, Leo E. Strine, David H. Webber

Faculty Scholarship

Incentives for individuals to save for retirement currently total 1.5% of US GDP. For that substantial investment, we get a system that actually deepens wealth inequality. The top 10% of earners capture 60% of the associated tax benefits, and employer matching contributions disproportionately favor the highest earners. Although defined contribution plans have long been subject to non-discrimination requirements aimed at ensuring that benefits do not accrue predominantly to the wealthiest participants, these rules have little bite. In an irony, we estimate that the entire 401(k) system would fail the non-discrimination test that every employer offering such a plan is expected …

Digital Servitude, Julie A. Dahlstrom

Faculty Scholarship

This Article addresses the phenomenon of digital servitude—forced labor practices facilitated by information and communications technology (ICT). With advances in technology and the internet, scholars and advocates have observed the rise of technology-facilitated human trafficking. Yet, disproportionate focus has remained on online sex trafficking, including commercial sex websites and online recruitment, despite ample research on work, technology, and digital surveillance. This Article seeks to fill this gap by shedding light on how technology intersects with involuntary servitude and forced labor claims in the United States. By analyzing federal pleadings in civil and criminal labor trafficking cases, it provides new insights …

Presuming Justice For Temp Workers, Andrew Elmore, Kati Griffith, Sachin S. Pandya

Faculty Scholarship

Workers need to know who their employers are. Who is responsible for remedying workplace dangers? Who can they sue for restitution when they are discriminated against at work, or do not get paid for all of the hours they work? Temp agency contracts complicate these seemingly simple questions. In workers’ rights cases involving “temps,” courts and administrative agencies often engage in protracted, resource-intensive joint employer inquiries to decide whether the temp agency clients share in employer obligations and liabilities with the agencies. This is the case even when the temp agency client has the key markers of an “employer,” such …

Mobility And Power In Temp Work, Andrew Elmore

Faculty Scholarship

Labor mobility is an underdiscussed determinant of temp worker power. Drawing on original interviews with professional and blue-collar workers who work as and alongside temps, this Article shows how businesses use staffing agencies to restrict the labor mobility of contingent workers. Staffing agencies limit worker mobility by imposing user- and worker-side contractual restraints while misrepresenting themselves to temp workers as their sole employer. They also exploit state-imposed mobility limitations by recruiting foreign nationals and people leaving incarceration and channeling them into their most precarious work. This enables clients to dismantle internal labor markets and to fill staffing shortages without raising …

Automatic Reaction - What Happens To Workers At Firms That Automate?, James Bessen, Maarten Goos, Anna Salomons, Wiljan Van Den Berge

Faculty Scholarship

We provide the first estimate of the impacts of automation on individual workers by combining Dutch micro-data with a direct measure of automation expenditures covering firms in all private non-financial industries over 2000-2016. Using an event study differences-indifferences design, we find that automation at the firm increases the probability of workers separating from their employers and decreases days worked, leading to a 5-year cumulative wage income loss of about 8% of one year’s earnings for incumbent workers. We find little change in wage rates. Further, lost wage earnings are only partially offset by various benefits systems and are disproportionately borne …

Saving Camelot? Nil And The Future Of Amateurism, William W. Berry Iii

BYU Law Review

This Article explores the future of intercollegiate athletics with a diminished (and perhaps even disappearing) amateurism model. Specifically, the Article argues that athletic conferences are in the best position to “save Camelot”—to preserve the aspects of college sports that make them beloved and distinctive—while at the same time realistically accounting for an evolving economic and legal landscape.

In Part I, the Article describes the economics of the NCAA’s current amateurism model. Part II explores the recent changes to the NCAA’s amateurism model in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alston v. NCAA and the widespread adoption of state name, …

Public Disclosure And Its Impact On Ceo Compensation: Evidence Of Media Influence, Xin Zhao

Journal of Global Awareness

I examine the effect of the AFL-CIO executive paywatch identification on future CEO compensation. My findings indicate that the public disclosure of CEO compensation has a negative impact on subsequent changes in CEO pay. Additionally, I find that CEOs with ex-ante overpayment have experienced changes in their subsequent compensation. This paper contributes to the literature by documenting that firms respond to negative press coverage of CEO compensation, even after controlling for the mean reversion effect associated with high CEO pay.

Religious Beliefs, Unemployment Benefits, And Constitutional Choices: Flynn V. Maine Employment Security Commission, Mary Ann Lynch

Maine Law Review

The last decade has seen a growing number of individuals adopt fundamentalist, "born-again" Christianity. For these people, religion requires more than observance of a sabbath, weekly services, or financial commitment. Fundamentalist religion often requires its adherents to spread their religious beliefs with missionary zeal. Religion may be a constant preoccupation and as such, is brought into the work place. Thus, there is potential for conflict between the needs and demands of employers and the exercise of one's religion. While the free exercise clause of the first amendment may not always provide protection for employees against employers' requirements, it nevertheless serves …

Comeau V. Maine Coastal Services: The Quantum Theory And The Rescue Doctrine In Workers' Compensation, George F. Eaton Ii

Maine Law Review

Section 51 of the Maine Workers' Compensation Act provides that in order to be compensable, an employee's injury must arise out of and occur in the course of the employment. The decision of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in Comeau v. Maine Coastal Services upheld the Workers' Compensation Commission's denial of the plaintiff's petition for an award of compensation. In reaching its decision, however, the Law Court departed from the long-settled analytical approach of treating the "arising out of" and the "in the course of" requirements as separate criteria both of which must be met in order to establish a …

¿Qué Futuro Les Espera A Los Trabajadores Latinos? El Calor Extremo, Las Promesas Vacías Y La Incertidumbre Política, Yunior Rivas Garcia

Capstones

Este artículo explora las condiciones mortales que enfrentan los trabajadores latinos en Estados Unidos debido al estrés por calor, un riesgo creciente en sectores esenciales como la construcción, la agricultura y el almacenamiento. A pesar de representar una proporción significativa de las muertes laborales, las protecciones contra el calor son insuficientes, y la falta de regulación federal agrava la vulnerabilidad de estos trabajadores, muchos de los cuales son indocumentados. A través de casos específicos, como la muerte de Esvin Cruz Mateo, y un análisis de las políticas laborales actuales, el texto examina las fallas estructurales que perpetúan la inseguridad laboral …