Workplace Prof Blog

NYC LERA: Just Cause Discipline for Fast Food Workers in NYC

Bill Herbert writes about the upcoming virtual NYC LERA event "Just Cause Discipline for Fast Food Workers in NYC." It will be from 6:00-7:30 on March 23 and you can find the registration and other info here. The description and panel of speakers look great (and CLE credits are available depsite there being no charge--although please consider becomeing a member):

The New York City Council recently passed a bill (Int. 1415-A) that limits when a fast food employer can discharge a fast food worker, only permitting terminations for “just cause” or a  “bona fide economic reason.” The new law takes effect on July 4, 2021. It adds new sections to the previously passed Fair Workweek Law (the FWW), utilizing and building upon the enforcement mechanisms provided to New York City’s Department of Workplace and Consumer Protection (DCWP). The new law allows discharged fast food workers to take their case to arbitration or to bring a lawsuit. What do workers, unions, and employers need to know?

Speakers

Brad Lander, New York City Councilmember, who represents the 39th District in Brooklyn and serves as City Council Deputy Leader for Policy
Paul Sonn, State Policy Program Director, National Employment Law Project
Lisa M. Griffith, Partner, Littler Mendelson, P.C.

Moderator

William A. Herbert, Distinguished Lecturer, Hunter College and LERA NYC Chapter Secretary

 

Jeff Hirsch

DC LERA: Bargaining Rights in the Public Sector

Many thanks to Tequila Brooks for sending us word of the DC LERA program on Wednesday, March 17, 2021. noon EST, It’s 2021 – Way Past Time for Collective Bargaining Rights in the Public Sector. The speaker is Elissa McBride, Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME, who will discuss The Public Sector Freedom to Negotiate Act, Legislative priorities for public service workers, and AFSCME campaigns in the DC metro area. It's free; register here. rb

Webinar: International Trade and Labour Law: the USMCA

Thanks to Vincenzo Pietrogiovanni (Lund University - Aarhus University) for alerting us to the webinar "International Trade and Labour Law: the USMCA", organised by the Labour Law Community - LLC together with the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law - ISLSSL, which will be held on Zoom on Thursday 14 January 2021 h 6.00 pm CET. To participate, follow this link starting at the time of the webinar. Here's a description:

The USMCA, an agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada that has replaced the NAFTA and the side agreement on labour (NAALC), represents an important advance on the path of the virtuous link between regulation of international trade and promotion of social rights. The new agreement, in fact, contains chapter no. 23 entirely dedicated to work: here the Parties go beyond the generic list of "principles" contained in the previous NAALC and expressly refer to the principles and conventions of the ILO, thus aiming for regulatory harmonisation between States through international labour law.

The opportunity to deepen the knowledge of this important Treaty with Janice Bellace and Lance Compa, distinguished scholars of labour law, appointed by the US government as members of the panel that has the task of sanctioning the non-compliant parties, is also a chance to reflect on the European economic and social model, as well as on the resumption of international trade relations in the Biden era, with the aim of relaunching the instrument of the social clause at a macro-regional but also at global multilateral level.

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EREPJ Call for Papers!

Great call for papers opportunity with EREJP!  From Michael Green...

CALL FOR PROPOSED PAPERS: Final papers due February 1, 2021, Employee Rights & Employment Policy Journal, Annual Symposium: “What Matters for Black Workers after 2020?” As we approach the end of a tumultuous year for all of us and, in particular for black workers, we are seeking papers for publication in Issue 1, Volume 25 of the Employee Rights & Employment Policy Journal on the topic of “What Matters for Black Workers after 2020?”

In 2020, we saw the senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others that led to national and international protests in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM). Unions and many black workers joined in further BLM solidarity during the Strike for Black Lives Matter held on July 20, 2020. Black athletes have engaged in several prominent acts supporting BLM, including kneeling by Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players, the longstanding activism efforts by members of the WNBA, and the NBA wildcat strike in response to the Jacob Blake shooting. Likewise, COVID-19 disproportionately affected black individuals, many of whom were considered essential workers, in substantial and different ways than other groups.

Divisive political actions created many hostilities for black workers in 2020, including the issuance of an executive order banning discussions of implicit bias and critical race theory in training programs of federal contractors as well as the increasing prevalence of white supremacist and militias groups who openly carried weapons threatening many black protesters and poll workers. Unfortunately, 2020 resulted also in the loss of many black civil rights leaders including John Lewis, Elijah Cummings, C.T. Vivian, and Joseph Lowery. After the 2020 election, there remains considerable uncertainty about legislative, executive, and judicial actions in response to the political appointments and agendas of the last four years that may create significant benefits or burdens for black workers. Black persons also continue to have lower salaries and levels of employment with greater opportunities to be arrested or imprisoned.

With these topics and any others that may affect black workers in mind, we ask all the phenomenal, experienced, developing, and budding scholars who have an intellectual interest in matters that affect black workers as we end 2020 to consider this call for proposals to submit a paper. If you are working on or contemplating writing about the above issues or any other key issues that black workers will have to face after 2020, please consider submitting your work for publication. We would like to have initial proposals by December 11, 2020 and final drafts, by Monday, February 1, 2021. This Symposium on “What Matters for Black Workers after 2020?” is sponsored by The Labor Law Group, a non-profit trust of labor and employment scholars who collaborate on various educational projects. Labor Law Group member Michael Green (Texas A&M) will serve as Symposium editor working with journal co-editors and Labor Law Group members, Martin Malin (Chicago Kent) and Noah Zatz (UCLA).

Submission Format and Instructions. We know this is a short window. But to know what the prospects for consideration are, we ask you by Friday, December 11, 2020 to please submit a Microsoft Word document as an abstract, précis, and/or introduction of the article that is developed enough to allow the editors to evaluate the thesis and proposed execution of the project as a proposal to Michael Z. Green, at [email protected] and Andrea Hudson at [email protected]. Selected authors of proposals will be notified by December 21, 2020, if not sooner, of the interest in potential publication. Completed papers will be expected by the Monday, February 1, 2021 deadline. Any inquiries about the Call for Papers should be submitted to Michael Z. Green at [email protected].

Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal is a faculty-edited, peer-reviewed journal co- published by The Labor Law Group and IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Institute for Law and the Workplace. Authors uniformly praise the Journal’s editing process. The Journal has a student staff who provide cite checking and Bluebooking, but their work is reviewed by the faculty editors, and authors do not deal directly with students.

LERA Call for Proposals

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Who: Wilma Liebman, LERA Program Committee Chair
What: Theme is "A Transformational Moment? Work, Worker Power and the Workplace in an Era of Division and Disruption"
When: Conference June 3-6, 2021. Deadline 11/15/2020 for session/paper/poster proposals.
Where: Online
How: Submit your session/paper/poster proposals here.

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ETUI Virtual Conference: Rethinking Labour Law in the Digitalisation Era

he European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the European Lawyers Network for Workers (ELW) Network, and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), with the support of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights ELDH, are presenting the conference Rethinking Labour Law in the Digitalisation Era on 15 and 16 October 2020. The conference will be livestreamed from the International Trade Union House (Brussels). Here's a brief description:

COVID-19 has aggressively turned our lives upside down. It is too early to tell how deeply the pandemic is changing our society, but one thing appears clear: technology will play an ever more pervasive and essential role in our working and private lives.
The programme brings together experts from different backgrounds (research, legal practice, trade unions and policymaking) to discuss possible avenues for a future where technological innovation and workers' rights can truly progress hand in hand.

Register here; here's more information.

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COSELL 2020 - Last Chance to Register

Ariana Levinson (Louisville) writes to remind us:

The 15th Annual Colloquium on Scholarship in Employment and Labor Law will be held virtually Friday, October 9 and Saturday, October 10. The registration deadline is Friday, July 31. Once we know the number of people participating we will be able to determine which platform or platforms will best permit us to have the number of “rooms” we need for presentations. At that point we will update the web page. In addition to the usual workshopping of papers, we have the following planned, and apologize our web page does not yet reflect this.

• A Friday lunch panel about human trafficking with those in Louisville working to combat the problem.
• A Friday evening reception with different Kentucky themed rooms that you can “stroll” through and mingle with others.
• A Thursday evening kick-off with a video series where professors share a teaching tip using a clip from American Factory

For the Thursday night video series, you can sign up to participate whether or not you are joining the rest of the conference. Use the registration selection for the American Factory screening. You simply come up with a clip that you would play to your class to illustrate a concept or for students to engage with to answer questions, or really any way you would suggest to another teacher to use the clip. We hope to have a couple of professors who teach different classes, Employment Law, Labor Law, Employment Discrimination, and others, each provide a video clip showing or explaining what portion of the video you would use and how. We will put the videos on YouTube as part of a COSELL project so that teachers could use them. The film directors, Julia and Steve, intended the movie to be used as a teaching tool. Anyone who has Netflix has the educational license to show the entire film or parts to their class. I hope many of you will volunteer!

Register for the conference here.

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Webinar: Global Governance & Worker Protection During the Pandemic

Desiree LeClercq (formerly Director for Labor Affairs at the Office of the United States Trade Representative; currently en route to Ithaca NY to teach at the Cornell ILR School) writes to tell us:

LERA has been hosting a series of webinars free to members and non-members that examine various labor elements of the COVID pandemic. This Thursday, May 28, from 10-11am, I will be moderating a panel on ""Global Governance During Pandemic: Implications of Force Majeure and National Emergency for Worker Rights Protections." Panelists will include representatives from the ILO, the World Bank, the World Maritime University, Solidarity Center, and Sustainable Enterprises. In case of interest, the link to register and receive the Zoom link may be accessed at: https://lera.memberclicks.net/lera-webinar-series--ler-during-covid-19.

This looks like a terrific program!

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15th Annual COSELL!

It's official ... the COSELL web page is now live. The conference is being hosted at (hopefully, literally "at") Louisville, and Arianna Levinson writes:

Please register for the 15^th Annual COSELL to be held at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, Thursday- Saturday, October 8-10, 2020, at this event page http://louisville.edu/law/cosell2020.  We look forward to seeing everyone in October!

This is by far my favorite academic conference (I've only missed one year) because it has a lot of interesting papers, at various stages, with incredibly helpful and supportive comments from all of my favorite labor and employment scholars. It's also a great place for more junior scholars to not only get feedback on their work, but meet others in the field. So if you've never been, now is the time to correct that mistake.

Jeff Hirsch

ILO Conference on the Future of Global Labor Rights

Thanks to Tequila Brooks for sending information about Continuing the Struggle: The ILO Centenary and the Future of Global Worker Rights. The conference will be November 21-22, 2019, at Georgetown University.

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Symposium: International Trade, Worker Rights, and Development

Thanks to Tequila Brooks for forwarding an announcement from Desiree (LeClercq) Ganz about this upcoming symposium at American University - Washington College of Law. The symposium, on International Trade, Development, and Worker Rights, will be on Tuesday, November 12, 2019, and will include as speakers high-level officials from the ILO, World Trade Organization, and World Bank, among others. Here's the symposium brochure.

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César Rosado writes to tell us about an upcoming symposium at Chicago-Kent on Thursday, November 14, 2019: Alt-Labor Law: The State of the Law of the New Labor Movement. Here's a schedule of the symposium; here's a description:

This proposed symposium will bring together a group of highly accomplished scholars who have been writing about nontraditional labor organizing and other ways to break and redistribute economic power to describe the current state of the law pertaining to “alt-labor,” or what the volume will refer to as “alt-labor law.” Parts of alt-labor law lie within traditional labor and employment law, but a lot of it does not. Alt-labor law includes first amendment protections used by non-employee labor unions and worker centers, laws regulating non-for-profit associations, state laws dealing with industry wide-minimum wage setting and voluntary dues deduction, and anti-trust laws that impinge on the rights of independent contractor unions, among others.

This proposed volume of the Chicago-Kent Law Review volume will serve as a research tool for academics, policy makers, and legal practitioners. They will have, in one place, the state of the law of this fledgling legal field. The live discussion at Chicago-Kent will help these scholars learn about the disparate and discreet pieces of the law of alt-labor to enrich the final drafts of their articles. It will also attract a public interested in alt-labor, not least in Chicago, home of many very active alt-labor groups.

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Casting All Shreds of Modesty Aside...

Some readers might be interested in a symposium the Seton Hall Law Review is sponsoring about my work. Scheduled for November 1, it really has a star-studded collection of scholars discussing various aspects of the topics I've written on for lo these many years. In short, there's something for almost everyone in the employment law universe and all are welcome.

And, no, this doesn't mean I'm retiring either from scholarship or Seton Hall! 

A Symposium in Honor of the Work of Charles A. Sullivan

November 1, 2019

8:15 am:                       Registration & Continental Breakfast

9:00-9:15 am:               Welcome

Daniel F. Carola, Symposium Editor, Seton Hall Law Review, Seton Hall University School of Law

Kathleen M. Boozang, Dean and Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law

9:15-9:30 am:               Overview

Timothy P. Glynn, Seton Hall University School of Law

 9:30-11:00 am:            Panel One: Faithless Servants, Employment Contracts, and the Sullivan Perspective

Rachel S. Arnow-Richman, University of Denver Sturm School of Law, Faithless Servants, Neglected Children:  Revisiting Sullivan’s Work on Employee Competition with a 2020 Vision

Matthew T. Bodie, St. Louis University School of Law, Taking Employment Contracts Seriously

Samuel Estreicher, New York University School of Law, Duty of Loyalty, Faithless Servants, and the Restatement of Employment Law

11:00-11:15 am:           Break

11:15-12:45 pm:           Panel Two: Antidiscrimination Insights: Causation, the Cat’s Paw, and Age Discrimination

William R. Corbett, Louisiana State University Law Center, Explorations with Charlie Sullivan: Theorizing a Larger Universe of Employment Discrimination Law

Sandra F. Sperino, University of Cincinnati College of Law, Charlie Sullivan Kills the Cat's Paw

Rebecca Hanner White, University of Georgia School of Law, Aging on Air

12:45-1:45 pm:             Lunch

1:45 – 3:15 pm:            Panel Three:  Social Change and Workplace Law

Michael Z. Green, Texas A&M University School of Law, Mediating Mental Illness as a Workplace Accommodation

Ann C. McGinley, UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law, MeToo Backlash or Common Sense?: It’s Complicated

Sachin S. Pandya, University of Connecticut School of Law, On Evidence of Social Networks in Employment Law:  Conjectures From Charlie Sullivan’s Shoulders

3:15-3:30 pm:               Break

3:30-5:00 pm:               Panel Four: Disparate Impact and the Future of Workplace Justice

Tristin K. Green, University of San Francisco School of Law, The Juxtaposition Turn: Watson v. Fort Worth Bank

Michael Selmi, Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Bending Towards Workplace Justice

Steven L. Willborn, Nebraska College of Law, Two Takes on Charlie’s Disparate Impact

5:00 pm:                      Closing Remarks

Tatiana S. Laing, Editor-in-Chief, Seton Hall Law Review, Seton Hall University School of Law

 

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Participate in SEALS Labor & Employment Law Panels

The Southeastern Association of Law Schools is now accepting panel proposals for its 2020 conference. For anyone who typically goes to SEALS, you know that there are typically several labor and employment law panels, in large part thanks to the work of Michael Green. Iif you're planning on attending this summer or are just thinking about it (and if you are, you should go--email me and I can tell you why), I'm writing to encourage you to let me know if you're interested in participating in panels or--even better--putting together one. The process is very easy and discussion groups leave a lot of room for flexibility on both topics and participants.

So, email me at [email protected] if you have any interest--no need to commit fully yet. And while I look forward to hearing from people who come regularly, I'd also love to hear from newcomers, especially more junior academics.

Jeff Hirsch

Cornell ILR's Conference on Labor and the U.S. Constitution

Cornell ILR Professor James Gross has organized a conference on the Labor and the U.S. Constitution for September 26-28, 2019 in New York City.  Conference presenters include Charlotte Garden, Cindy Estland, Catherine Fisk, Sophia Lee, Maria Ontiveris, Ruben Garcia, Jim Pope, Jim Brudney and many others.

 

Check out this link for a full list of the great presenters and registration information.

 

Jeff Hirsch

 

CFP Biagi Conference

Susan Bisom-Rapp reminds us that the deadline for submitting a proposal to this year's Biagi Conference is Monday. Here's an excerpt from the call for papers:

[T]he call for papers of the 18th International Conference in commemoration of Prof Marco Biagi has been opened. The conference will take place in Modena (Italy) on 19 and 20 March 2020, and will be entitled "Beyond Employment: Protecting Autonomous Work".

The Scientific Committee welcomes the submission of proposals for papers or panels by the members of the international scholarly community.The proposals should be submitted by 9 September 2019 by email to the address: [email protected]. More details on the call and the conference are available here.

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Call for Papers: USF Symposium

Friend-of-Blog Maria Ontiveros sends along the following Call-for-Papers:

University of San Francisco Volume 54 Law Review is holding a Symposium on January 31, 2020 on “Access to Justice in the Contemporary Workplace.” We are seeking proposals for articles to be included in the issue and presentations to be made at the event. Priority will be given to presenters who will be submitting articles for publication. Dependent on availability, we will consider publishing articles even where the author cannot attend the Symposium. The Symposium will focus broadly on analyzing the policies, practices, and barriers that may restrict an individual’s access to the legal system in the field of labor and employment law. This invitation includes an inquiry into the role of the rule of law and confidence in the legal structures that provide impartiality in labor and employment law.

Specific panels or topics could include, but are not limited to the following: Protections or lack thereof for gig-economy workers; Barriers that prevent meaningful advancement in ending sexual harassment; The chilling effect of threats of retaliation; Unequal treatment and protections for low-wage and immigrant workers; Unique issues in the tech industry; Bans on class actions; The rise of mandatory arbitration; Lack of statutory protections for LGBTQ+ workers; The decline of traditional unions; and Concerns regarding continued respect for stare decisis and the weight of precedent.

If you would like to participate, submit a 500-word abstract summarizing your article or describing your proposed presentation by September 30, 2019. Offers will be sent shortly thereafter and no later than October 14, 2019. Selected Symposium articles will be included in our Spring 2020 issue that will be published in Summer 2020 or a future issue. In order to meet this deadline, completed first drafts of articles will be due by February 10, 2020 and preferably consist of 7,000 to 11,000 words. Limited funds are available to cover travel and hotel for symposium participants; however, we are not in the position to offer per diem stipends or honorarium.

All article submissions, Symposium participation inquiries, or questions should be directed to Sophia Terrassi, Symposium Editor at [email protected].

Last Call: COSELL at UNLV on Oct. 10-12

Ann McGinley and Ruben Garcia at UNLV wish to remind you that registration for the 14th Annual Colloquium on Scholarship on Labor and Employment Law (COSELL) is still open, BUT IT IS CLOSING SOON (August 31).

The colloquium takes place from October 10-12 in Las Vegas. Remember to register and get your hotel rooms now before the prices go up!  Here's the link to the website for registration and other information:

https://law.unlv.edu/event/14th-annual-colloquium-scholarship-employment-and-labor-law

CFP: Biagi Conference on "Beyond Employment: Protecting Autonomous Work"

Thanks to Susan Bisom-Rapp for forwarding the following call for papers:

[T]he call for papers of the 18th International Conference in commemoration of Prof Marco Biagi has been opened. The conference will take place in Modena (Italy) on 19 and 20 March 2020, and will be entitled "Beyond Employment: Protecting Autonomous Work".

The Scientific Committee welcomes the submission of proposals for papers or panels by the members of the international scholarly community.The proposals should be submitted by 9 September 2019 by email to the address: [email protected]. More details on the call and the conference are available here.

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2019-20 LEL Conferences and Symposia

Apart from the COSELL and the AALS session described in the post below, I'm not aware of any LEL-themed academic conferences or live symposia in the U.S. for AY 2019-20. If you know of any, would you please add a brief description and link as a comment to this post? Many thanks,

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