A smaller percentage of American workers are now in unions than before the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. As a consequence, the overwhelming majority of Americans who work do so under the shadow cast by a 19 th century rule that allows a worker to be terminated for any reason or no reason, regardless of the number of years he or she has worked for an employer. Classical political theory asks what social arrangements are productive of good citizens.
Employment law offers an opportunity to think about the nature of law in a different way.
For the most part, our legal curriculum presents subjects where we assume law s neutrality. We usually adopt also a perspective that assumes the field of study can be characterized in terms of individual rights. But for workplace regulation, law s intervention is necessarily political, and we must consider not only the individual, but also the struggle of competing group and social interests. Employers claim the right and authority to run their business as they see fit. We will study the law of wrongful termination, Title VII and related statutes governing workplace discrimination, the National Labor Relations Act regulating unionization and collective bargaining, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act.