Workplace Prof Blog

Canadian Supreme Court Issues Critical Disparate Impact Decision

Christopher Albertyn (Albertyn Arbitration Inc.) is kind enough to write this guest post on the important new Canadian decision of Fraser v. Canada (Attorney General), 2020 SCC 28 (CanLII):

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The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pension plan discriminated against women. The pension plan therefore breached an Equality Right at section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

The claimants were full-time RCMP members who took advantage of a job-sharing arrangement offered by the RCMP. During the period they were job-sharing their employment was characterized as part-time. Part-time employees were not entitled to purchase full-time pension credits. So, when the claimants ended the period of their job-sharing and they sought to purchase their full-time pension credits, they were advised that, as part-time employees during their job sharing, they could not buy back their full-time pension credits. They claimed this determination discriminated against them in violation of section 15(1) of the Charter.

On October 16, 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada (the SCC) ruled that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pension plan breaches section 15(1) on the ground of sex. This was because a provision of the plan perpetuated discrimination against women by precluding members who participate in job-sharing arrangements from purchasing full-time pension credit. The result was that their eventual pension entitlements were less than those, predominantly male employees, who were able to purchase full-time pension credits during periods of less than full-time work, including when they were on disciplinary suspension. Only those regular, full-time employees who were on the job-sharing program were not able to purchase the credits for their periods of less than full-time work.

The S.C.C. found that the RCMP pension plan has a disproportionate impact on women and so violated women’s rights to equality under the Charter.

The finding was not because “women continue to have disproportionate responsibility for childcare and less stable working hours than men, but because the pension plan ‘institutionalizes those traits as a basis on which to unequally distribute; pension benefits to job-sharing participants” [para.136].

Justice Abella, writing for the S.C.C., made clear that the Charter guarantees substantive equality, having regard to the actual impact on the affected employees. On its face the imposition of less favourable pension benefits for job-sharing members seemed to affect all RCMP members equally, but it had a disproportionate impact on the women officers, and so was found to be discriminatory.

The S.C.C. applied the two-step test to section 15(1) claims. The claimant had to demonstrate:

1. 1. that the impugned action, in its impact, created a distinction based on a prohibited ground, and
   2. that the action imposed had a disproportionately adverse effect on the members of the protected group, in this case, women.

On the first step, the S.C.C. found that statistical evidence showed a clear association between sex and fewer working hours. So, the RCMP’s use of a temporary reduction in working hours as a basis for imposing less favourable pension consequences had an adverse impact on women. The RCMP members who took part in the job-sharing program were predominantly women with young children. Most of these women gave childcare as their reason for doing so.

In holding that the second step was established, the S.C.C. found that the RCMP’s pension plan perpetuated a long-standing gender bias that favoured “male pattern employment” (permanent, full-time workers with long uninterrupted service records) over “female pattern employment” (temporary or part-time service). This resulted in a disproportionate economic disadvantage for women.

This case is important in reiterating and clarifying how discrimination cases are to be decided. It gives a clear statement that substantive equality is the standard on which the protection is to be decided. Also, the question is not whether a provision explicitly targets a protected group for differential treatment, but rather, does the provision do so indirectly through its impact? The S.C.C. suggested that two types of evidence are useful to provide that a law or action has a disproportionate impact on a protected group: evidence of the full context of the protected group (i.e. their physical, social, cultural or other barriers), and evidence about the results or effects of the law or action on them. To establish the link between the impugned provision and the alleged disadvantage, the claimants need only demonstrate consistent statistical disparities in how the provision affects them, without having to explain why that was the result. Such evidence “is itself a compelling sign that the law has not been structured in a way that takes into account the protected group’s circumstances”. Through such evidence, some seemingly neutral policy can be shown to have a disproportionate impact on the protected group.

The S.C.C. also had some helpful additional observations:

1. 1. The intention of the legislator is irrelevant. It is not necessary to prove an intention to discriminate.
   2. If the claimants demonstrate that a law has a disproportionate impact on members of a protected group, they need not independently prove that the protected characteristic “caused” the disproportionate impact, i.e. that the basis of the exclusion was the protected characteristic. The effect is all that matters.
   3. The claimants need also not show that the impugned provision affected all members of the protected group in the same way, or even at all. Practices that amount to partial discrimination are no less discriminatory than those in which all members of a protected group are affected.

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Clean Slate Project Issues Report

Thanks to Jon Harkavy for word that the Clean Slate for Worker Power project has issued its final report A Clean Slate for Worker Power: Building a Just Economy and Democracy. Here's a brief excerpted description from Kelsey Griffin:

An initiative of Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program — called Clean Slate for Worker Power — released its final report Thursday calling to overhaul American labor laws and increase workers’ collective bargaining power. Law School Faculty members Sharon Block and Benjamin I. Sachs led the project. The initiative brought together leading activists and scholars to recommend policies aimed at empowering working people.

The report claims that an extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of few people has created economic and political inequality in the United States. It argues that current labor laws have fostered systematic racial and gender oppression. It also asserts that labor laws exclude vulnerable workers from vital labor protections and devalue the work performed by these workers.

Block and Sachs said they believe addressing this economic and political inequality would require a completely new system of labor law, rather than simply adjusting current policies. The report recommends that labor laws better enable working people to build collective organizations to increase their leverage with employers and in the political system. The policy recommendations aim to increase worker representation and inclusion by expanding the coverage of labor laws for independent contractors, as well as undocumented, incarcerated, and disabled workers. The report lays out an array of options for alternative worker representation in addition to labor unions, such as work monitors — employees who would ensure compliance with federal labor regulations.

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Strikes in Higher Ed

Bill Herbert (CUNY - Hunter College) and Jacob Apkarian (CUNY - York College) have just posted on SSRN their empirical article You’ve Been with the Professors: An Examination of Higher Education Work Stoppage Data, Past and Present (forthcoming 23 EREPJ ___ (2019)). Here's the abstract:

This article analyzes work stoppage data in calendar years 2012-2018 involving academic and non-academic employees at higher education institutions. It contextualizes the recent data through a review of the history of unionization and strikes in the field of education along with faculty strike data for the period 1966-1994. The study contributes to the literature concerning unionization and collective bargaining in higher education and will be of value to those who study or are engaged in labor relations at colleges and universities.

We find that there was a total of 42 strikes and one lock-out involving faculty, graduate assistants, and non-academic employees in higher education during the seven-year period from 2012 to 2018. The largest number of strikes per annum was in 2018, which was more than double the number in 2017. Exactly one-half of all strikes during the seven-year period were by non-academic employees, one-third of the strikes by faculty, and one-sixth by graduate assistants. The states with the greatest number of strikes were Illinois, California, and Washington.

Faculty units affiliated solely with AFT participated in 29% of all faculty strikes during the period. An additional 13% of the faculty strikes involved units co-affiliated with AAUP and AFT. AFSCME and UAW played leading roles in strikes involving staff and graduate assistants during the period with AFSCME averaging one strike per year over the period.

There was a total of 14 faculty strikes with an average of 2.0 per year in the period 2012-2018, compared to a total of 172 faculty strikes with an average of 5.9 per year during the period 1966-1994. The average duration of faculty strikes during the 2012-2018 period was 2.9 days with a median of 3 days, as compared to the average strike duration of 13.9 days and median duration of 8.5 days for the period 1966-1994. Non-tenure-track faculty were involved in 93% of all faculty strikes in 2012-2018, seven strikes with tenure-track faculty and six without.

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Emerging Technology in the Workplace: AI, Robotics, Virtual Reality, & Monitoring

I normally try to avoid too much self-promotion on the blog, but I wanted to post a new draft article of mine. Hopefully the topic is of interest, but I post it mainly because I'd love comments and thoughts, which you can send me directly (I'm going through the journal submission process now, but still need to work on some things, especially citations). The article is called Future Work and is available on SSRN. The abstract:

The Industrial Revolution. The Digital Age. These revolutions radically altered the workplace and society. We may be on the cusp of a new era—one that will rival or even surpass these historic disruptions. Technology such as artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, and cutting-edge monitoring devices are developing at a rapid pace. These technologies have already begun to infiltrate the workplace and will continue to do so at ever increasing speed and breadth.

This Article addresses the impact of these emerging technologies on the workplace of the present and the future. Drawing upon interviews with leading technologists, the Article explains the basics of these technologies, describes their current applications in the workplace, and predicts how they are likely to develop in the future. It then examines the legal and policy issues implicated by the adoption of technology in the workplace—most notably job losses, employee classification, privacy intrusions, discrimination, safety and health, and impacts on disabled workers. These changes will surely strain a workplace regulatory system that is ill-equipped to handle them. What is unclear is whether the strain will be so great that the system breaks, resulting in a new paradigm of work. 

Whether or not we are on the brink of a workplace revolution or a more modest evolution, emerging technology will exacerbate the inadequacies of our current workplace laws. This Article discusses possible legislative and judicial reforms designed to ameliorate these problems and stave off the possibility of a collapse that would leave a critical mass of workers without any meaningful protection, power, or voice. The most far-reaching of these options is a proposed “Law of Work” that would address the wide-ranging and interrelated issues posed by these new technologies via a centralized regulatory scheme. This proposal, as well as other more narrowly focused reforms, highlight the major impacts of technology on our workplace laws, underscore both the current and future shortcomings of those laws, and serve as a foundation for further research and discussion on the future of work.

Thanks.

-Jeff Hirsch

 

Union Dissenters Lose First Janus Clawback Decision

One of the questions that followed the Supreme Court's Janus decision was whether unions had to give back dues that unions had already collected. Several employees, backed by anti-union groups, sued based on the theory that unions shouldn't be able to keep funds that the Court has announced were unconstitutionally required under collective-bargaining agreements with their public employers. Unions, on the other hand, responded that although the Court had long made clear its intention to overrule Abood and rule this way, clear precedent states that until the Court makes such a change, current caselaw applies. This isn't just an interesting legal question; there is a ton of money at stake for unions.

Yesterday, we got the first judicial decision on this question, in favor of unions. In Danielson v. AFSCME, the Western District of Washington dismissed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that past-paid fees were unconstitutional and seeking a return of those funds. At the heart of the dismissal was the court's holding that the union involved enjoyed a good faith defense against the Section 1983 claim because when they collected the fees, they were legal under both state and federal law. There's a general understanding among many courts that Section 1983 includes a good faith defense and the court held that it applied here. That's not surprising given that the Supreme Court has been very clear that lower courts should not try to predict what the Court will do--the law is what it is until the Court says it isn't.

This is a significant win for public-sector unions, but this issue isn't over. There are several other identical suits which could well come out differently, and I'm sure this case will be appealed. So stay tuned.

-Jeff Hirsch

NY Court Denies Motion to Dismiss Case Challenging Teacher Tenure Statutes

Thanks to Mitch Rubinstein for sending word of Davids v. State, ____A.D. 3d____(NY App. Div. 2d Dep't. March 28, 2018), where a New York appellate court refused to dismiss a constitutional challenge to teacher tenure statutes. Basically, the claim is that it is too difficult to fire teachers and the tenure statutes violate the Education Article in the NYS Constitution. For Mitch's take on the case, see this post at his blog Teacher and New York Public Employee Lawyer.

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Oral Argument in Janus

Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME, the newest in several decisions in which a bloc on the Court has attempted to strike down public-sector mandatory union fees (see here, here, and here for some of our earlier coverage). I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that this time is the charm. The 8 veteran Justices age no reason to think that they moved from previous positions, which results in a 4-4 split on this issue. The newer Justice Gorsuch was uncharacteristically silent during oral argument, but I'd be stunned if he doesn't vote with the conservative bloc to overturn Abood and find such fees to be unconstitutional. You can judge for yourself by reading the oral argument.

-Jeff Hirsch

Firing Nazis

David Yamada (Suffolk) has a post worth reading over at Minding the Workplace on Can an employer fire a publicly-avowed white supremacist?  The answer: almost certainly yes for private-sector employers; yes with some free-speech caveats for public-sector employers.

Also worth reading is Dean Dad's post today on When Neutrality Isn't an Option. Those of us in higher-ed administration need to be able to work with folks of widely varying political stripes -- so long as we can find "common ground ... in the name of helping the students and the community." But

[p]ublic higher education is for the entire public. A movement that denies that there even is such a thing -- that assumes a better and a worse public, whether by race, religion, or whatever else -- is an existential threat to our mission. We need to be willing to treat it accordingly.

That means not “teaching the controversy,” or pretending that there are “many sides” to this one. Anti-semitism, for instance, doesn’t really lend itself to a “pro or con” analysis. It’s wrong. It’s just flat wrong. White supremacist terrorism is wrong. And that’s not just a personal view, although it is also that; it’s a precondition for doing the work we do every single day.

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Mala Corbin on Clerks, Free Speech, and Marriage Licenses

Caroline Mala Corbin (Miami) has just posted a new essay on SSRN that hits several of the workplace social issues sweet spots connected with LGBTQ rights and claims of conscience: A Free Speech Tale of Two County Clerk Refusals, forthcoming in the Ohio State Law Journal. Here's the abstract:

The ever-expanding Free Speech Clause has made possible claims that would have been unthinkable until recently. This symposium Essay examines the compelled speech claims of two hypothetical county clerks who believe that marriage should be limited to unions between one man and one woman, and who argue that forcing them to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples compels them speak in favor of same-sex marriage in violation of the Free Speech Clause. 

When a government employee such as a county clerk speaks, she may not be speaking as just a private individual. She may also be speaking as the government. This governmental component affects each side of the speech versus equality analysis. First, the Free Speech Clause interests in speech are weaker (sometimes to the point of extinguishment) when the speech is not purely private. Second, to the extent the government employee’s conduct is the government’s, then it amounts to state action, and the Equal Protection Clause is triggered. 

Part I addresses the free speech claims of a county clerk who is terminated after she informs a same-sex couple that by reason of her beliefs, she cannot grant them a marriage license. The outcome here is straightforward: she loses. Because her refusal will be treated as the government’s own, her individual free speech interests are at their lowest while the government’s equal protection interests are at their highest. Part II addresses the free speech claims of a clerk who has found a coworker willing to cover for her, but her supervisor declines to accommodate her and instead fires her for refusing to do her job. The analysis here is more complicated, as it raises questions about expressive conduct, official duties, and expressive harms.

I'm looking forward to reading this.

MM

Wasserman Previews SCOTUS Case Re: MSPB Appeals

Over at Scotusblog, Howard Wasserman (FIU) previews in detail Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Board, which will be argued April 17. Here's a short excerpt of his preview:

In 2012, in Kloeckner v. Solis, the court appeared to resolve the question of the appropriate forum for federal civil-service employees appealing decisions of the Merit Systems Protection Board in “mixed cases” (cases alleging an adverse employment action that also violated a federal anti-discrimination statute), holding that those decisions must be challenged in federal district court. But in Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Board, to be argued April 17, the court returns to the issue to decide whether, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held, the answer is different when the MSPB rejects the employee’s claim for lack of jurisdiction because the adverse employment action is not appealable, rather than on the merits or on some procedural ground.

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Herbert on the History of Higher Ed Collective Bargaining

Bill Herbert (Hunter College) recently did an interview with Radio Higher Ed: "A Primer on Unionization and Collective Bargaining in U.S. higher Education Institutions." According to the summary:

This primer on collective bargaining in higher education traces historical developments of unionization in public and private institutions as well as among tenure track, non-tenure-track faulty and graduate students. In the last five years, unionization activity has increased over 25% in the private sector, mostly in adjunct faculty units. While institutions can participate in voluntary collective bargaining activities, agreements in a formal collective bargaining context include clear rules applicable to the entire bargaining unit and enforcement mechanisms. The emergence of micro bargaining units (department level activity), and specifics of the unionization process are discussed. Specific unions that work with higher education institutions are named. Mandatory subjects in the collective bargaining process include salary, hours, healthcare, pension, professional development grievance, antidiscrimination, academic freedom, tenure, use of facilities, appointment and reappointment details, leaves, holidays, evaluations, personnel files, disciplinary actions, research and fellowship monies. Institutions may resist unionization due to flexibility limitations, institutional concept of shared governance and fiscal implications that may result from compensation negotiations. It is likely that unionization will continue to increase for non-tenure track faculty in the private sector. Regularity of access to faculty by students may be aided by collective bargaining.

Check it out!

-Jeff Hirsch 

 

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New Book: Public Sector LEL

The New York State Bar Association has just published Lefokwitz on Public Sector Labor & Employment Law (4th ed. 2016), edited by William A. Herbert, Philip L. Maier, and Richard K. Zuckerman. Here's the publisher's description:

This landmark text is the leading reference on public sector labor and employment law in New York State. Editors William Herbert, Philip Maier, and Richard Zuckerman bring together leading attorneys in the field to contribute their expertise to this two-volume work.

Covering all aspects of this area of law, Lefkowitz on Public Sector Labor and Employment Law includes chapters on the Taylor Law, the representation process, the duty to negotiate, improper practices, strikes, mini-PERBS, arbitration and contract enforcement, and more. Much of the discussion in this two-volume resource has been revised and contains updated case and statutory references throughout. Practitioners new to the field, as well as the non-attorney, will benefit from the book's clear, well-organized coverage of what can be a very complex area of law. All practitioners will benefit from the exhaustive coverage of this book, whether they represent employees, unions or management.

With this edition, this treatise has been renamed to recognize Jerome Lefkowitz, who served as former Public Employment Relations Board chair, as Editor-in-Chief of the first three editions, and who transformed New York's labor landscape by helping to write the Taylor Law.

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Conference Announcement: Collective Bargaining in Higher Ed

Friend of the Blog Bill Herbert sends word that registration is now open for the National Center's 44th Annual Conference on March 26-28, 2017 in New York City. The conference keynote speaker is NLRB Chair Mark G. Pearce. The number and breadth of panels and workshops is far too long to list and describe here, but is available at the Conference Registration Website.

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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 ubfeministconference@gmail.com. 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 majohnson@ubalt.edu. 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 mzgreen@law.tamu.edu and arguthrie@law.tamu.edu 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

EEOC Decides that Sexual Orientation Discrimination = Sex Discrimination

Yesterday, the EEOC ruled that discrimination based on an applicant's or employee's sexual orientation is always a violation of Title VII.  The EEOC had been making noises in that direction, but this makes the opinion official.  

In its decision, the EEOC went beyond previous caselaw, which recognized that discrimination based on sexual orientation may fit under a sex stereotyping theory.  But this theory required the plaintiff to establish that the adverse decision was motivated by the plaintiff's not fitting the employer's stereotype (e.g., an effeminate male).  Yesterday's decision went further by holding that sexual orientation discrimination always equates to sex discrimination under Title VII.  The EEOC's reasoning is that discrimination based on someone's sexual orientation necessarily discriminates against that person's sex.  In other words, an employer that discriminates against a man who is attracted to men, but not to women who are attracted to men is engaged in sex discrimination.  The money quote from the decision (you can see this Buzzfeed article for more quotes):  

[S]exual orientation is inseparable from and inescapably linked to sex and, therefore, [] allegations of sexual orientaticm discrimination involve sex-biased considerations. . . . Sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination because it necessarily entails treating an employee less favorably because of the employee's sex. 

Plaintiffs pushed this argument years ago with almost no success (although, as the EEOC notes, courts have gone along with the same argument for other types of discrimination, such as an employee in an interracial marriage), so it'll be interesting to see if courts are more hospitable to this argument.   One practical hurdle is preexisting precedent; however, an agency pronouncement should be entitled to deference, which could help overcome that problem.  And there's also the reality that the country as a whole, not to mention the Supreme Court, has obviously become far more sensitive to sexual orientation discrimination over the past several years.  But it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

For more reading, see Victoria Schwartz's (Pepperdine) article from 2012, where she argued for just this theory.  Expect some court citations soon, Victoria  . . . .

Hat Tip:  Patrick Kavanagh and others.

-JH

 

 

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 (kdauschm@indiana.edu)
• Jamie Prenkert (japrenke@indiana.edu)
• Victor D. Quintanilla (vdq@indiana.edu)
• Deborah Widiss (dwidiss@indiana.edu)

MM

Early Labor and Employment Supreme Court Decisions

Last week, the Supreme Court decided two labor and employment cases.  In one, M&G Polymers, a unanimous Supreme Court held that courts should apply ordinary contract principles when deciding whether health-care benefits survive the expiration of a collective-bargaining agreement.  This holding reversed the Sixth Circuit's Yard-Man presumption that CBAs intend these benefits to vest for life.  The Court remanded for the CBA to be interpreted by "ordinary contract principles," but ominously noted that "when a contract is silent as to the duration of retiree benefits, a court may not infer that the parties intended those benefits to vest for life."  This stance seemed to be a primary motivation for a four-Justice concurrence (the more liberal Justices).  The concurrence stressed that courts should be open to interpreting a CBA to intend vesting of retirees' health benefits, albeit without the Yard-Man "thumb on the scale."  The impact of M&G Polymers will depend on how courts apply the decision, so we'll have to wait and see.

In the other decision, Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, the Court held (7-2, with Justices Sotomayor and Kennedy dissenting) that a TSA regulation did not eliminate whistleblower protection.  At issue was a provision in the federal whistleblower statute that makes an exception for disclosures "specifically prohibited by law."  In MacLean, the Court held that Congress intended this provision to apply to statutes, but not agency regulations (e.g., elsewhere in the statute, Congress used the phrase "law, rule, or regulation").  The dissenters largely agreed with the majority, but thought the exception was satisfied by the Homeland Security Act's mandate that the TSA prescribe regulations to prevent disclosure of certain information.  This case is certainly a win for federal whistleblowers and will require Congress to be more proactive if it wants exceptions for certain whistleblower disclosures.

-JH

 

Michigan: Public University Student-Athletes are Not Public Employees

    As student football players at Northwestern University press forward with their case at the National Labor Relations Board, the Michigan legislature has amended its statute governing public-employee collective bargaining to exclude student athletes at Michigan’s public universities.  The amendment, now in effect, added the underlined text:

An individual serving as a graduate student research assistant or in an equivalent position, and a student participating in intercollegiate athletics on behalf of a public university in this state, or any individual whose position does not have sufficient indicia of an employer-employee relationship using the 20-factor test announced by the internal revenue service of the United States department of treasury in revenue ruling 87-41, 1987-1 C.B. 296 is not a public employee entitled to representation or collective bargaining rights under this act.

Michigan Complied Laws 423.201(1)(e)(iii).  (Although the text of this provision also excludes graduate student research assistants, a federal district court declared that exclusion to violate article IV, section 24, of the Michigan Constitution.  Toth v. Callaghan, 995 F. Supp. 2d 774 (E.D. Mich. 2014).)

 

--Sachin Pandya

AALS workplace sections joint newsletter

 Thanks to Monique Lillard (Idaho), chair of the AALS Labor Relations and Employment section and Natasha Martin (Seattle), chair of the AALS Employment Discrimination section for sending along the joint newsletter of the two sections for posting. Download it while it's hot:  Download Joint Newsletter for AALS Sections

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