Source: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/laboremployment_history/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 08:09:31+00:00

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This looks like a great conference and I strongly encourage anyone interested to apply!
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.
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.
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.
We will look forward to hosting you in Bloomington!
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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 gardenc@seattleu.edu by Saturday, Sept. 20; the brief is due to be filed on Monday, Sept. 22.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Back in January, Maria Shriver's organization "A Woman's Nation" issued its third report on fundamental challenges facing women in the U.S.: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink. I have not had a chance to read the whole report, which focuses on financial insecurity of women and the children who depend on them, and the impact of that financial insecurity on our country's institutions and econonic futures, but the parts I have read have been very thought provoking. For more, see the Shriver Report's home page.
In connection with that report, Shriver and HBO created a documentary, Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert, to personalize the struggles of low wage workers, most of whom are women. The documentary is streaming free at HBO Docs YouTube page this week only.
I was at the Ohio Bench Bar Dean's Conference today, and noticed this as part of the cornerstone of the Ohio Supreme Court building. I thought readers of this blog would enjoy it.
The building, built art-deco style in the late 1920s and early 1930s, originally housed Ohio's asministrative agencies, but now houses the Ohio Supreme Court.
The inside of the building is also suffused with labor images.
This wasn't unexpected, but the D.C. Circuit made it official: the court today denied the NLRB's petition for rehearing and en banc review in NAM v. NLRB [I've just got access to the rehearing denial at the moment]. This was the notice posting case that we blogged about quite a bit when it came out.
Given the D.C. Circuit's political makeup, there was only a small hope that it would take the case en banc. I do think there's a good chance the Supreme Court will grant cert. How they might treat a case is up in the air, of course. The 5-member majority is obviously not a fan of labor, so it's a good bet that the rule will remain struck down somehow. However, I think there's a decent chance the Court would not be willing to write such a sweeping decision as the D.C. Circuit's.

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