Workplace Prof Blog

Ohanesian on the Importance of Judicial Deference to the NLRB

Nick Ohanesian (ALJ; MSU adjunct) has just posted on SSRN his timely and important article Errors and Omissions: Applying Lessons from History to Decide the Future of Administrative Deference with Respect to the National Labor Relations Board. Here's the abstract:

A majority of the current members of the Supreme Court have expressed an interest in altering or doing away with entirely deference to administrative agencies. Prior to upending the existing regime, it is useful to understand the what the world would look like without administrative deference and at the same time serve as a cautionary tale about how courts will behave when unrestrained. Labor law and the judicial treatment of labor unions provides a particularly vivid illustration in this regard. Much of the scholarship up to this point has focused on the merits of deference, its role in the separation of powers, the proper allocation of power between the three branches of government, and the practical effects of deference on administrative decision-making. This article will show how the history of the Courts and Congress with respect to labor unions should support continuing administrative deference to the National Labor Relations Board.

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Veterans, USERRA, and War Powers Abrogation

Forgive me for a bit of self-promotion, but I wanted to flag an amicus brief that a group affiliated with UNC Law filed with the Supreme Court supporting a petition for cert. by the Plaintiff in Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety. The question centers on war powers abrogation, specifically whether state employers retain sovereign immunity in the face of congressional war powers legislation. In Torres, that legislation is USERRA, which prohibits employment discrimination based on military service and provides leave and other benefits for servicemembers called to active duty or attending training for, e.g., National Guard. Given the huge number of active and reserve servicemembers, this is an important statute even in normal times. But it's especially so now in a year that saw the greatest mobilization of National Guard troops since Wold War II.

Le Roy Torres was a Texas State Trooper who was called into active duty in Iraq. While there, he continually breathed toxic ash that made him, in addition to thousands of other veterans, very ill. So ill, he was unable to perform his usual trooper duties when he came home. According to Torres’ claim, the Texas Dept. of Safety refused to accommodate him with a desk job, instead forcing him to resign. Torres sued under USERRA, but his employer has argued that courts can’t even hear the claim because of state sovereign immunity. The Texas courts, like several other states, have agreed with this defense. But as I’ve argued in my research, which this and an earlier amicus draws on, these courts are wrong.

I actually first wrote on this topic when I was on the entry-level market. At the time, I argued that despite dicta saying that Article I can’t ever abrogate state immunity, the Court’s historical analysis leaves the door open for certain Article I powers to allow suits against states. Under this analysis, state sovereign immunity is determined by the “plan of the [Constitutional] Convention. In my earlier article, I argued that war powers should be an exception to the “no Article I abrogation” dicta. The Court has recognized that there are exceptions to state immunity; therefore, in what might be the unofficial theme of my research, “if not war powers, then what?” In other words, if there are areas in which states lack immunity, no area has a stronger claim than war powers. Indeed, subsequent to that article, the Court held in Katz that states lacked immunity when it comes to Article I’s Bankruptcy Clause. Which leads one to ask if the Bankruptcy Clause allows suits against states, then surely war powers does too.

Prompted by an earlier Torres amicus brief I wrote while the case was being considered for cert. by the Texas Supreme Court, I revisited this issue post-Katz in my new article, War Powers Abrogation, forthcoming in the George Washington Law Review. In this article, I thoroughly examined the history of the War Powers Clauses from the Articles of Confederation period, through the Constitutional Convention and text, and then the Ratification debates. The article provides the details, but the story is crystal clear: the only reasonable reading of the “plan of the Convention” is that the Founders and states adopted the Constitution fully knowing and intending states NOT to have any sovereignty when it comes to war powers. Instead, a central feature of the Constitution was assuring that the federal government was in charge of the nation’s security, free from state interference. In short, no one during that period—even those who objected to the Constitution—thought that states could interfere with the federal government’s war powers actions, including legislation like USERRA. So far, state courts (which currently have sole jurisdiction of USERRA claims against state employers) have failed to even address this history, instead siding with state immunity claims based on outdated dicta or superficial distinguishing of Katz. Our hope is that the Supreme Court will take up the issue to correct that error. So stay tuned.

Finally, I want to thank those who have helped with this brief and research (and, fingers crossed, one supporting the merits to come). This includes my research assistant, Kemper Patton, staff on the George Washington Law Review, and the several people who helped write the amicus: Elizabeth Fisher (Wiley), Rachel Grossman (UNC Law), Andy Hessick (UNC Law); and Rick Simpson (Wiley). Also thanks to the Torres’ ever-helpful counsel, including Brian Lawler (Pilot Law) and Andrew Tutt (Arnold and Porter). And, last but not least, thanks to Le Roy Torres, his wife, and the other veterans who are trying to simply get their day in court to exercise their rights under USERRA.

Jeff Hirsch

NYU Conference: Re-Training America for the Future of Work

NYU Law School's Center for Labor & Employmet Law is holding an interesting conference this week on "Re-Training America for the Future of Work." The info:

Thursday, December 3 | 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (Eastern) -- Zoom 

Co-Organizers: Profs. Samuel Estreicher and Jonathan Harris.

The introduction of artificial intelligence, and machine learning in the workplace has sparked vigorous debate around the extent of worker displacement that could result. Imbedded in these conversations is a consensus on the need for major efforts at worker training, retraining, upskilling, and reskilling. The discussants will cover varying approaches to workforce training to meet the demands of employers for skilled workers while ensuring that high quality career paths await the trainees. The discussants will highlight barriers to quality jobs, including unnecessary licensure requirements, and obstacles to establishing effective training programs. They will also evaluate various approaches to workforce development, including private-sector initiatives, community college-led training, training intermediaries, union and DOL-backed Registered Apprenticeship, a new Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program, regional investment, and other models that encourage collective investment in training today’s and tomorrow’s workers. REGISTER

Hon. John P. Pallasch, Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training at the U.S. Department of Labor, will share opening remarks. Other confirmed discussants include:

• Daniel Bustillo, Director, Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP)
• Robert Chiapetta, Director of Government Relations, Toyota USA
• Prof. Morris Kleiner, AFL-CIO Chair in Labor Policy, University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs
• Dr. Livia Lam, Senior Fellow and Director of Workforce Development Policy, Center for American Progress
• James Murphy, Esq., Spivak Lipton 
• Amy Peterson, Executive Director, NYC Mayor's Office of Workforce Development
• Paul Salvatore, Esq., Proskauer
• Teresita Wisell, Vice President and Dean for Workforce Development and Community Education, Westchester Community College

Jeff Hirsch

LERA Webinar: Behind the Scenes of the Library of Congress’s New Occupational Folklife Project

Tequila Brooks sends word that the D.C. branch of LERA is offering the webinar Ironworkers, Nurses, Hairdressers and Port Pilots: Behind the Scenes of the Library of Congress’s New Occupational Folklife Project. The speaker is Nancy Groce, Senior Folklife Specialist, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Here's a description:

In 2010, Nancy Groce, a folklorist at the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, designed and launched the Occupational Folklife Project (OFP). Inspired by the Work Projects Administration’s Life Histories and the work of Archie Green and Studs Terkel, the OFP set out to document the culture of contemporary American workers during an era of economic and social transition. She collaborated with fieldworkers across the U.S., supported by a specially designed online submission platform. The on-going, born-digital project has now amassed more than 1,200 audio and video interviews with workers in scores of trades, industries, crafts, and professions. The completed interviews are being incorporated into Library of Congress archives. They are now available online.

Ms. Groce will discuss designing and implementing this significant new labor history resource and how scholars and researchers can now access and use it. We invite you to join us at noon on September 9th in what promises to be a fascinating Webex event.

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Call for Papers - The Taylor Law at 50

Friend-of-blog Lise Gelernter (SUNY Buffalo) sends along the following CALL FOR PAPERS:

The Taylor Law at 50: Bright Spots and Pressure Points .The New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) and the Taylor Law 50th Anniversary Committee are pleased to invite submissions for a special conference recognizing New York’s Taylor Law and its substantial influence on public sector labor relations over the past 50 years. The conference will take place May 10-11, 2018 in Albany, NY.  Practitioners and scholars interested in presenting their work at the conference should submit an abstract of a proposed paper or session by September 15, 2017. Abstracts should be no longer than 1,000 words and should include a detailed description of the focus of the proposed paper or session, its relevance to the conference, and its contribution to the study or practice of public sector labor relations. In addition, session abstracts should also include a list of invited participants and their proposed presentations.  Prospective contributors are encouraged to contact PERB Chair John Wirenius ([email protected]), Lise Gelernter ([email protected]), William Herbert ([email protected]), or Ariel Avgar ([email protected]) with any question or inquiries regarding this call for papers. Paper and session abstracts should be submitted via email to [email protected]. Authors will be notified by December 15 if their paper or session has been accepted to the conference. 

For this conference we especially welcome submissions that shed new light on key aspects of the Taylor Law, its application, and its consequences for public sector labor relations. We also encourage submissions that provide a comparative perspective based on evidence from other states or countries. We welcome submissions from practitioners, scholars, policy makers across a wide array of disciplinary domains including, but not limited to, law, history, economics, sociology, political science, labor relations, and human resources.

This looks like a great conference and I strongly encourage anyone interested to apply! 

- Joe Seiner

The Conservative Case for Unions

Jonathan Rauch has written The Conservative Case for Unions in the Atlantic. Congratulations to Matt Dimick (Buffalo) for a prominent mention, and for Rauch's discussion of Dimick's work on the Ghent System. Here's an excerpt from the article:

All workers do not suffer equally from the decline of unions: In today’s fragmented, hypercompetitive, and globalized workplace, high-powered professionals enjoy more autonomy and respect than ever. Less educated workers, by contrast, have lost agency and, in many cases, dignity. Edward Luce of the Financial Times puts the problem well in his new book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism: “In survey after survey, the biggest employee complaint is being treated with a lack of respect. Whether they work in an Amazon warehouse, serve fast food, or sit in a … customer-service cubicle, they feel diminished by how they are treated.” That has implications not just for the well-being of workers, but for the health of capitalism and even of democracy.

In America, the modern conservative movement was founded on anticommunism and antiunionism. Senator Barry Goldwater (“Mr. Conservative”) built his career bashing unions. President Ronald Reagan, although a former union leader himself, made his bones by breaking the air-traffic controllers’ union. Just this past February, Republicans succeeded in their long push for a right-to-work law in Missouri. But the conservative war on unions is beginning to look like a Faustian bargain. If 2016 taught us anything, it was that miserable workers are angry voters, and angry voters are more than capable of lashing out against trade, immigration, free markets, and for that matter liberal democracy itself.

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Baumol, Higher Ed, and Professional Labor

William Baumol (econ.; NYU, Berkeley, Princeton) died yesterday. He informed the way many of us think about higher-ed financing and professional labor. I am re-posting here an excerpt from Dean Dad's tribute this morning:

Longtime readers know that I consider [Baumol's] signature contribution to economic thought -- Baumol’s Cost Disease -- one of the foundational truths of higher education.  (The same could be said for health care and live entertainment.)  He waited until late in life to commit the idea to book form; his book The Cost Disease should be required reading for anybody who presumes to comment or work on the economics of higher education....

His idea is generally downplayed or ignored in discussions of higher ed financing.  That’s everyone’s loss.  He never really solved the issue, but he gave us a map to understand it.  That’s a genuine contribution.  Well done, sir.
--
Baumol’s insight helps us understand, too, the broad-based assault on the professions.  Why are “disruptors” so intent on undermining the educated professional middle class?  Because until now, people in those jobs were able to demand significant salaries due to scarcity.  If you’re the first to break that scarcity, whether through automation, disaggregation, or some other variation, you can hoover up those gains for yourself.  Which is exactly what’s happening.

When you break the link between labor and production, it becomes much easier to hoard value in a few hands.  We’re only beginning to grasp the implications of that.

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Nolan & Bales Labor & Arbitration Nutshell

Dennis Nolan and Rick Bales have just published the new edition of their book, Labor and Employment Arbitration in a Nutshell (West, 3d ed.). The publisher's description:

Labor and employment arbitration law simplified. Authoritative coverage provides a description of the origin, development, and practice of labor and employment arbitration. Text focuses on the fundamentals of the labor and employment arbitration process and explores the major arbitration law issues, their importance, and the conflicting opinions on them.

A must have if your studying or working in this area.  

-JH

 

 

Child Laborers

The Washington Post has posted 20 photos from Lewis Hine, documenting child laborers from the early 1900s.  There are some really moving pictures in the collection and all of them show young children who are doing extremely hard work.  Definitely worth a look.

Of course, child labor is not unheard of even today. 

-JH

 

Call for papers from the Center for Applied Feminism & Intersectionality

The Center for Applied Feminism (Baltimore) has a call for papers that will be of interest to some of our readers:

CALL FOR PAPERS

APPLIED FEMINISM AND INTERSECTIONALITY: 

EXAMINING LAW THROUGH THE LENS OF MULTIPLE IDENTITIES

The Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law seeks paper proposals for the Tenth Anniversary of the Feminist Legal Theory Conference.  We hope you will join us for this exciting celebration on March 30-31, 2017.

This year, the conference will explore how intersecting identities inform -- or should inform -- feminist legal theory and justice-oriented legal practice, legal systems, legal policy, and legal activism. Beginning in 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw identified the need for law to recognize persons as representing multiple intersecting identities, not only one identity (such as female) to the exclusion of another (such as African American). Intersectionality theory unmasks how social systems oppress people in different ways.  While its origins are in exploring the intersection of race and gender, intersectionality theory now encompasses all intersecting identities including religion, ethnicity, citizenship, class, disability, and sexual orientation. Today, intersectionality theory is an important part of the Black Lives Matter and #SayHerName movements. For more information, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/. 

We seek submissions of papers that focus on the topic of applied feminism and intersecting identities.  This conference aims to explore the following questions: What impact has intersectionality theory had on feminist legal theory?  How has it changed law and social policy? How does intersectionality help us understand and challenge different forms of oppression?  What is its transformative potential? What legal challenges are best suited to an intersectionality approach? How has intersectionality  theory changed over time and where might it go in the future?

We welcome proposals that consider these questions from a variety of substantive disciplines and perspectives. As always, the Center’s conference will serve as a forum for scholars, practitioners and activists to share ideas about applied feminism, focusing on connections between theory and practice to effectuate social change. The conference will be open to the public and will feature a keynote speaker. Past keynote speakers have included Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Dr. Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Amy Klobuchar, NOW President Terry O’Neill, EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, and U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner.

To submit a paper proposal, please submit an abstract by Friday October 28, 2016 to [email protected]. Your abstract must contain your full contact information and professional affiliation, as well as an email, phone number, and mailing address. In the “Re” line, please state: CAF Conference 2017. Abstracts should be no longer than one page. We will notify presenters of selected papers in November. About half the presenter slots will be reserved for authors who commit to publishing in the annual symposium volume of the University of Baltimore Law Review. Thus, please indicate at the bottom of your abstract whether you are submitting (1) solely to present or (2) to present and publish in the symposium volume. Authors who are interested in publishing in the Law Review will be strongly considered for publication. For all presenters, working drafts of papers will be due no later than March 3, 2017. Presenters are responsible for their own travel costs; the conference will provide a discounted hotel rate as well as meals.

We look forward to your submissions. If you have further questions, please contact Prof. Margaret Johnson at [email protected]. For additional information about the conference, please visit law.ubalt.edu/caf.

MM

SEALS 2016 Call for Papers: New and Existing Voices in Labor and Employment Law

Friend of the blog and Southeastern Association of Law Schools Labor and Employment Law Workshop organizer extraordinaire Michael Green (Texas A & M) sends along this call for papers for the 2016 SEALS annual conference:

The Southeastern Association of Law Schools(SEALS) is pleased to host the fourth annual “New Voices in Labor and Employment Law” program during the 2016 SEALS Annual Meeting in Amelia Island, Florida. This year we have extended the program to also include “Existing Voices in Labor and Employment Law.” The purpose of this works-in-progress program is to give junior and existing scholars feedback on papers from senior scholars before the upcoming submission cycle.  We are seeking submissions from labor and employment law scholars with five or fewer years of full-time teaching experience (not counting the 2015-16 academic year) and will also consider drafts from existing labor and employment scholars regardless of experience.

Submissions should be drafts of papers relating to labor and employment law that will be near completion by the time of the SEALS meeting held August 3-9, 2016.  To be considered for participation in the program, please send an email to Professor Michael Z. Green, Texas A&M University School of Law, at [email protected] and [email protected] by 5:00 p.m. E.S.T., Monday, January 11, 2016. In your email, please include the title of your paper, a short description of the context (e.g., “Disparate Impact after Dukes”), and a full abstract. Full-time faculty members of SEALS member or affiliate member schools, who have been teaching labor and employment law courses for five or fewer years as of July 1, 2015, will be given a preference in the selection of those contacted to submit final papers but we hope that labor and employment scholars with even more experience will submit papers as well. 

To ensure enough time for adequate feedback, space will be limited to 6 participants; additional registrants will be placed on a waiting list and invited to participate on a space available basis. Those individuals accepted into the program must submit a complete draft by 5:00 p.m. E.S.T., Friday, June 10, 2016. Please submit your drafts electronically to the email addresses above. The draft should be accompanied by a cover letter with the author’s name, contact information, and confirmation that the submission meets the criteria in this call for papers.

Submissions are limited to a maximum 40,000 word limit (including footnotes). Papers can be committed for publication prior to their submission as long as they are not actually scheduled to be printed prior to August 9, 2016. Each professor may submit only one paper for consideration. No papers will be accepted after the deadline and the submission of an incomplete draft may limit participation in this workshop.  Paper commentators may include Professors Brad Areheart (Tennessee), Anthony Baldwin (Mercer), Richard Bales (Ohio Northern), Scott Bauries (Kentucky), Theresa Beiner (Arkansas-Little Rock), Miriam Cherry (St. Louis), Brian Clarke (Charlotte), Michael Green (Texas A&M), Wendy Greene (Samford), Stacy Hawkins (Rutgers Camden), Jeff Hirsch (North Carolina), Nancy Levit (Missouri-Kansas City), Natasha Martin (Seattle), Marcia McCormick (St. Louis), Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Iowa), Elizabeth Pendo (St. Louis), Nicole Porter (Toledo), Jessica Roberts (Houston), Veronica Root (Notre Dame), Ani Satz (Emory), Paul Secunda (Marquette), Kerri Stone (Florida International), Michael Waterstone (Loyola), and others to be determined. 

Please be aware that selected participants and commentators are responsible for their own travel and lodging expenses related to attending the SEALS Annual Meeting, including the SEALS registration fee. Any inquiries about the SEALS New and Existing Voices in Labor and Employment Law Program should be submitted to Professor Michael Green at the email above.

 SEALS is a great conference because it is not overly formal, and people are quite approachable. Also, like many workshops in the labor and employment community, the commentators are usually supportive and really engaged. I always leave with more energy than I had when I arrived. We'll keep you posted on other programming as it's set.

MM

Two views of past as prologue by Widiss, one on Griggs, and the other on the ADA

Deb Widiss (Indiana) has two recent articles that will be of interest to our blog readers. The first is Griggs at Midlife, 113 Mich. L. Rev. 992 (2005), reviewing Bob Belton's recent book, The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace. From the abstract: 

Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court case that held that policies that disproportionately harm minority employees can violate federal employment discrimination law even without evidence of “intentional” discrimination, recently turned forty. Griggs is generally celebrated as a landmark decision, but disparate impact’s current relevance (and its constitutionality) is hotly debated. Robert Belton’s The Crusade for Equality in the Workplace offers a rich and detailed history of the strategic choices that led to the plaintiffs’ victory in Griggs. This Review uses Belton’s history as a jumping off point to consider the contemporary importance of disparate impact in efforts to challenge employers’ use of criminal background screens. The Review also suggests that the failure to develop intersectional analysis — that is, an analysis of how sex and race may interact — in disparate impact doctrine risks obscuring key vectors of exclusion.

Belton’s book gives modern readers an inside look at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund’s litigation campaign in Griggs, and it does an excellent job showing how lawyers used disparate impact doctrine to dismantle test and educational requirements that could have excluded many black employees. The book, however, focuses almost exclusively on race discrimination cases. This Review explores the contemporaneous — and less successful — development of the doctrine in early sex discrimination cases. Generally, courts have not required employers to modify workplace structures that fail to accommodate caregiving responsibilities or pregnancy, despite their disparate impact on the basis of sex. Moreover, such policies often disproportionately harm women of color. By filling in this history, the Review offers a more nuanced assessment of disparate impact’s early years.

The Review then considers contemporary efforts to challenge employers’ use of criminal background screens, policies that likewise cause a disparate impact on the basis of both race and sex. It suggests that current litigation might be more successful if the intersectional approach were better developed, but it also highlights the importance of compliance work in achieving equal employment opportunity in the modern world. Although the EEOC has lost some high profile cases in this area, its guidance indicating that criminal background screens may cause an unlawful disparate impact has pushed employers to reconsider and refine their use of such screens.

The second expanded on Deb's other work on "shadow precedents," precedents that still seem to guide the courts even after Congress amends statutes to reverse the effects of those precedents: Still Kickin after All these Years: Sutton and Toyota as Shadow Precedents, 63 Drake L. Rev. 919 (2015). From that abstract:

Congress’s ability to override judicial opinions that interpret statutes is generally understood as an important aspect of maintaining legislative supremacy. In a series of articles, I have challenged the validity of this assumption by showing that courts often continue to rely on overridden precedents — what I have called shadow precedents. My earlier work explores instances in which it was unclear or debatable whether the override or the prior precedent should control. This article further documents such ambiguities, but its primary objective is to highlight examples of ongoing reliance on shadow precedents where it is unquestionably improper. It suggests, however, that citation of shadow precedents may often stem from information failure, including poor briefing by counsel, rather than courts’ willful disregard of legislative mandates.

The article, written for a symposium on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), examines implementation of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA). The ADAAA, a broadly bipartisan bill, was intended to supersede Supreme Court decisions that had set a very stringent standard for what impairments qualified as a disability. The ADAAA explicitly “rejected” the reasoning in these decisions; amended the ADA’s substantive provisions; and instructed courts to interpret the standard “in favor of broad coverage.” Many lower courts are properly implementing the revised standard, and the overall number of citations to the superseded decisions has dropped sharply. But this article identifies numerous post-ADAAA cases in which courts follow the old precedents for propositions that were undeniably superseded. Mistakes are particularly prevalent in cases alleging discrimination because one is “regarded as” having a disability. Even though the ADAAA was an unusually strong and clear override, it has failed to change fully the law on the ground.

The symposium mentioned in the abstract was published in the Drake Law Review and was an outgrowth of the AALS Employment Discrimination section panel at last year's annual meeting. It's a great symposium with pieces by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Steven Befort (Minnesota), Ruth Colker (Ohio State), Arlene Kanter (Syracuse), and Nicole Porter (Toledo).

MM

Tenth Annual Colloquium Registration Open

Deborah Widiss (Indiana) has good news to share:

The annual Colloquium on Scholarship in Employment and Labor Law (COSELL) will be held at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Sept. 11-12, 2015, in Bloomington, Indiana. This conference, now in its tenth year, brings together labor and employment law professors from across the country. It offers participants the opportunity to present works-in-progress to a friendly and knowledgeable audience.

 Registration is now open at: http://www.law.indiana.edu/cosell.

 If you’re planning to come, please go ahead and register now; you can fill in details about the project you will present later in the summer.

 The conference is free, and we will provide all meals during the conference. Travel & hotel information is found on the website.

 Please feel free to contact any of us with questions.

 We will look forward to hosting you in Bloomington!

• Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt ([email protected])
• Jamie Prenkert ([email protected])
• Victor D. Quintanilla ([email protected])
• Deborah Widiss ([email protected])

MM

Secunda on Right to Work laws

With right to work on the agenda and in the public eye in Wisconsin, it only makes sense that Milwaukee's NPR affiliate WUWM would turn to Paul Secunda, our friend and blogger emeritus. Paul was a guest on "Lake Effect," with this introduction:  "As a potential debate over right-to-work laws looms in Wisconsin, we get some historical perspective on such legislation, and more insight into the impact it could have on labor and politics in the Badger State." Follow the link to listen to the whole thing, or find just Paul's segment on this page. Nice work, Paul!

MM

Call for Papers: Thirteenth Amendment, Class, and Labor

Rebecca Zietlow (Toledo) sends along this call for papers: 

Call for Papers

Sesquicentennial Conference:

The Thirteenth Amendment through the Lens of Class and Labor

Approaching the 150th anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment, we find ourselves in a period of heightened concern about issues of economic inequality. If any provision of the United States Constitution speaks to those issues, it is the Thirteenth Amendment. The Amendment’s proponents maintained that it established “freedom” and a “free labor system,” a view eventually accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Beginning after the turn of the millennium, Congress has drawn on the Amendment to support legislation outlawing the “new slavery,” including – for the first time – forms of labor control other than physical force or legal compulsion. Conversely, state governments have cited
the Amendment’s punishment clause to justify forced labor by prisoners in a rapidly growing archipelago of private prisons and prison industries.

Paper proposals should focus on the Thirteenth Amendment and include class or labor as an important theme. Proposals addressing the relations (including relative priorities) and intersections of race, gender, and sexual orientation with class or labor are strongly encouraged. Proposals should be e-mailed to [email protected] by January 10, 2015. We anticipate that the papers will be published in a law review symposium issue.

The Thirteenth Amendment Through The Lens of Class and Labor Conference is sponsored by the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at the Seattle University School of Law, the Seattle University School of Law, and the University of Washington School of Law. The conference will be held at the Seattle University School of Law on May 31- June 1, 2015, immediately following the annual meeting of the Law & Society Association.

Planning Committee for the Sesquicentennial Conference on the Thirteenth Amendment through the Lens of Class and Labor:

Charlotte Garden (Seattle University School of Law)

Darrell A.H. Miller (Duke University School of Law)

Maria Linda Ontiveros (University of San Francisco School of Law)

James Gray Pope (Rutgers University School of Law)

Aviam Soifer (William S. Richardson School of Law)

Lea VanderVelde (University of Iowa College of Law)

Ahmed White (University of Colorado School of Law)

Rebecca E. Zietlow (University of Toledo College of Law)

Looks like a great opportunity.

MM

The Workplace Constitution

Why do most people today not have rights at work that come from the US Constitution?  That’s the puzzle at the heart of a just-published legal history: Sophia Z. Lee, The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).  Here’s the publisher’s description:

Today, most Americans lack constitutional rights on the job. Instead of enjoying free speech or privacy, they can be fired for almost any reason or no reason at all. This book uses history to explain why. It takes readers back to the 1930s and 1940s when advocates across the political spectrum – labor leaders, civil rights advocates, and conservatives opposed to government regulation – set out to enshrine constitutional rights in the workplace. The book tells their interlocking stories of fighting for constitutional protections for American workers, recovers their surprising successes, explains their ultimate failure, and helps readers assess this outcome.

 From the book itself:

From the vantage point of the mid-twentieth century, the workplace Constitution’s future looked promising.  In the 1930s and 1940s, two movements began trying to extend the Constitution to the workplace.  They were opposed to each other politically but they shared this legal goal.  One, the civil rights movement, would go on to capture the attention of the nation and dismantle Jim Crow.  The other, the right-to-work movement, fought for open shops.  Although its history is less well known, this second movement was supported by prominent politicians and opinion makers.  Together, the two movements created a strange and contentious but politically powerful combination.  Their successes and failures change the historical understanding of constitutional law, labor politics, civil rights struggles, and conservative movements.

 The book’s website is here.

 

--Sachin Pandya

Hat tip: Legal History Blog

Supreme Court grants cert in EEOC v. Abercrombie

The Supreme Court granted cert in a number of cases today as a result of its long conference, including EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch. The cert question is this:

Whether an employer can be liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for refusing to hire an applicant or discharging an employee based on a “religious observance and practice” only if the employer has actual knowledge that a religious accommodation was required and the employer's actual knowledge resulted from direct, explicit notice from the applicant or employee.

The district court had denied A & F's motion for summary judgment and granted the EEOC's, holding that, as a matter of law, A & F had failed to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of an applicant for employment. The Tenth Circuit reversed, remanding and ordering the district court to enter summary judgment for A & F. The applicant, a young Muslim woman, wore a hijab, a head covering, and although the store manager recommended she be hired, a district manager decided that because she wore the hijab, she should not. He determined that the hijab would not comply with the company's "Look Policy." 

The Tenth Circuit held that summary judgment for A & F was proper because the applicant "never informed Abercrombie prior to its hiring decision that she wore her headscarf or 'hijab' for religious reasons and that she needed an accommodation for that practice, due to a conflict between the practice and Abercrombie’s clothing policy." Interestingly, the store manager assumed that the applicant wore her hijab for religious reasons and never raised the issue during the interview. She also did not suggest that there might be a conflict between that practice and the "Look Policy," which the applicant otherwise could easily comply with.

The Court also granted cert in another case that might have implications for employment discrimination. The question in Texas Dep't of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusiveness Project is whether disparate impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act. The Fifth Circuit did not consider that question in the case. Instead, it followed its prior precedent that they were cognizable, and held that the legal standard to be used should be the regulations adopted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

So, overall, this term is shaping up to be another blockbuster for employment and labor. Here is a roundup.

Cases that directly deal with employment and labor questions:

• Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, a whistleblower/retaliation case
• Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, whether time spent in security screenings is compensable under the FLSA as amended by the Portal to Portal Act.
• M&G Polymers v. Tackett, a case about presumptions related to interpretation of CBAs on retiree health benefits under the LMRA.
• Mach Mining v. EEOC, whether and to what extent the courts can enforce the EEOC's duty to conciliate before filing suit.
• Tibble v. Edison, Int'l, an ERISA case involving the duty of prudence and the limitations period for bringing claims.
• Young v. UPS, whether light duty accommodations only for on-the-job injuries violates Title VII as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

And there is one additional case that might have implications for religious accommodations in the workplace. Holt v. Hobbs, which concerns whether a department of corrections policy that prohibits beards violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act insofar as it prohibits a man  from growing a one-half-inch beard in accordance with his religious beliefs.

MM

Cancelosi & Garden Amicus in M&G Polymers

Susan Cancelosi & Charlotte Garden write to say they are working on an amicus brief in M&G Polymers v. Tackett, a case concerning the ongoing validity of the Yard-Man presumption in interpreting collective bargaining agreement clauses that promise retiree health benefits.  The brief focuses on the initial negotiation of many retiree health benefits clauses during the 1960s and 1970s, offering context that explains why employers may have agreed to lifetime retiree health benefits during that key period of time.

If you would like to see the brief so that you can decide whether you would like to sign on, please contact Charlotte at [email protected] by Saturday, Sept. 20; the brief is due to be filed on Monday, Sept. 22.

MM

Jack Getman Retires

When our list of faculty moves went up last month, one item left of the list was the retirement of Julius (Jack) Getman from the University of Texas after 28 years on the faculty. The American Statesman did a nice story on Jack's career. Here's a part:

A sort of Johnny Appleseed of labor law, Getman has through the decades sprinkled proteges all over the country. Many of them followed Getman into academia. Many of them chose their professor’s specialty even if they’d planned on practicing another kind of law before they took Getman’s basic labor law class which, 2011 graduate Elliot Becker recalled, “some of us called ‘Story Time with Grandpa Jack.’”

“I don’t know where I’d be without him,” said Becker, who this fall will go to work in the general counsel’s office of the National Labor Relations Board.

“I didn’t go to law school thinking I wanted to do labor and employment,” said James Brudney, who teaches labor at Fordham Law School. “It was the exposure to him and the subject that converted me. He has a remarkable blend of realism, sardonic humor and remarkably perceptive insights analytically about the real world.”

While Getman may be sympathetic to workers and the labor movement, he’s not a dogmatic radical who has never missed a Pete Seeger concert.

“His perceptions of the struggles that ordinary shop floor workers had to go through made him sensitive to both the positive aspects of (union) leadership and the risks that leadership might separate from the rank and file,” Brudney said. “He’s obviously sympathetic to unions, but that has not restrained him from offering substantial and powerful critiques.”

Jack's book Restoring the Power of Unions was also the subject of the Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law program at the AALS annual meeting in 2011, which coincided with the UNITE HERE boycott of the conference hotel. The presentations were published in volume 15, issue 2 of the Employee Rights & Employment Policy Journal. 

h/t Michael Murphy and Harris Freeman

MM

Registration Open for the 9th Annual Colloquium on Labor and Employment Law at U. of Colorado

From conference organizers Scott Moss and Melissa Hart, at the University of Colorado Law school comes word that registration is open for the Ninth Annual Colloquium on Labor and Employment Law Scholarship. The dates will be September 11th to the 13th in Boulder. 

As many of you already know, this is a terrific opportunity to get to know colleagues in an informal setting and exchange ideas as we discuss works-in-progress. Past participants likely would agree that the friendly, low-key atmosphere and productive sessions, as well as the chance to socialize with our colleagues, make this gathering especially fun and valuable.

The Colloquium will follow the familiar format. We will workshop papers all day Friday through Saturday afternoon. Exact times TBD; check the event webpage for updates as the Colloquium approaches.

To register, click here.

MM