Labour and Employment Law Initiatives and Proposals under the Obama Administration

by Zev J. Eigen, Samuel Estreicher

Overview

Barack Obama’s famous “Blueprint for Change,” part and parcel of the campaign that culminated in his historic election as U.S. president in November 2008, openly announced his support for the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1409) suggesting that major change was imminent in U.S. labor and employment law. Although promised legislative change has yet to materialize, there appears to be a growing consensus that the current system for addressing employment disputes in union-represented and non-union workplaces deserves renewed attention and needs significant restructuring. Thus, the issues taken up by this prominent U.S. conference remain relevant to policy debates which will likely continue to rage in the United States for years to come. Based on papers delivered at the 2009 conference of the New York University School of Law’s Center on Labor and Employment Law – the 62nd in this venerable and highly influential series – the book presents articles updated by the authors to reflect more recent developments, as well as new papers to ensure a comprehensive and current analysis of both what has actually changed and which trends seem to be gaining momentum. Twenty-two outstanding scholars and practitioners in U.S. labor law and practice pay special attention to such issues as the following:

mandatory arbitration of employment disputes in non-union sector;
call for improved administration of the National Labor Relations Act in expediting elections and reinstating discriminatees;
more privatized forms of dispute resolution such as arbitration and mediation;
card-check and neutrality agreements bypassing government processes;
proposed reform of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act;
evaluating market-based defenses to pay equity claims;
EEOC initiatives in public enforcement of equality law; and challenges to labor relations in state and local governments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789041134578
Publisher:	Wolters Kluwer Law & Business
Publication date:	04/28/2011
Pages:	730
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.56(d)

Table of Contents

Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University School of Law

Editor's Preface

NYU Center for Labor and Employment Law Board of Advisors

Part I Labor Law Reform

Administrative Change A.

Chapter 1 Improving the Administration of the NLRA without Statutory Change

Samuel Estreicher

Chapter 2 The NLRB in Administrative Law Exile: Problems with Its Structure and Function and Suggestions for Reform

Catherine L. Fisk & Deborah C. Malamud

Legislative Change B.

Chapter 3 Two Sentences, 104 Words: Congress's Folly in First Contract Arbitration and the Future of Free Collective Bargaining

Andrew M. Kramer, Jacqueline M. Holmes & R. Scott Medsker

Chapter 4 Card Check 2.0

Benjamin I. Sachs

Chapter 5 Reforming Labor Law by Reforming Labor Law Preemption Doctrine to Allow the States to Make More Labor Relations Policy

Henry Drummonds

Chapter 6 Federal Preemption Is Essential to a Coherent National Labor Policy

Frederick D. Braid

Comparative Exercises and Insights C.

Chapter 7 Sequential Failures in Union Organizing

John-Paul Ferguson

Chapter 8 Card Check Labor Certification: Lessons from New York

William A. Herbert

Chapter 9 Card Majority Certification and First Contract Arbitration: Lessons from the Canadian Experience

Roy L. Heenan, O.C. and Danny J. Kaufer

Chapter 10 Employee Free Choice Act First Contract Interest Arbitration: Lessons (or Lack Thereof) from the Postal Reorganization Act

Anton G. Hajjar

Part II Discrimination and Individual Rights

Chapter 11 The State of the EEOC: Rebuilding the Agency to Meet New Challenges and Seize Opportunities

Stuart J. Ishimaru

Chapter 12 Individual Justice or Collective Legal Mobilization? Employment Discrimination Litigation in the Post-Civil Rights United States

Laura Beth Nielsen, Robert L. Nelson, & Ryon Lancaster

Chapter 13 Employment and Consumer Arbitration: What Do the Data Show?

Alexander J.S. Colvin

Chapter 14 A Gap in the Agenda: Enhancing the Regulation of Age Discrimination in Employment

Michael C. Harper

Chapter 15 The Market Defense

Sharon Rabin-Margalioth

Chapter 16 Employment Testers Revisited

Michael J. Yelnosky