- Resistance mounts to NLRB’s revived “ambush unionism” plans [Epstein Becker Green, Fred Wszolek, three members of Congress/Washington Times, earlier]
- Fifth Circuit: employer’s blanket “don’t talk about company personnel or financial matters” policy violates NLRA [Texas Employment Law Update, Jon Hyman]
- Minimum wage: “Silver Bullet or Poisoned Chalice?” [U.K.-based Institute of Economic Affairs] Nonmonetary impact of minimum wage hikes found “not only in reduced fringe benefits but in increased work demands and decreased job training”” [Richard McKenzie/NCPA via Tyler Cowen]
- Connecticut lawmakers press for pro-labor-union curriculum in public schools [AP/Albany Times-Union]
- Labor/employment, tougher regulatory enforcement top business concerns in new Norton Rose litigation trends survey;
- Incumbent practitioners, not consumers, nearly always the ones pushing for tougher occupational licensure [David Stokes’s Missouri testimony, Show-Me Institute, PDF]
- Court again upholds Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s public sector labor legislation against challenge [Journal-Sentinel, earlier here, etc.]
Archive for April, 2014
Class action lawyers vs. high speed trading
The city of Providence R.I. has consented to serve as their client [Kansas City Star, Reuters, Center for Financial Stability, earlier on Michael Lewis book]
Advice for Peoria mayor Jim Ardis
To curtail parody, stop being so parody-able in the aftermath of your decision to send cops after your Twitter critics [Radley Balko, more, earlier] Related: “Watch Repairer Goes Legal Over Tame Yelp Review, Streisand Effect Takes Over” [Geigner, TechDirt]
Dissents that read like dissents
“With respect, the majority opinion ignores the physical evidence, the expert testimony, the eye-witness testimony, and the laws of physics.” [from Purvis v. Grant Parish School Board, Louisiana Supreme Court, Feb. 14, 2014]
Speaking of European labor-law rigidity…
The Wall Street Journal last month (paywalled, no link) reported on how the long-moribund British auto industry now has a striking success, BMW’s Mini plant in Oxford, along with a hopeful sign for the future, Tata Motors Ltd.’s plans to invest $2.5 billion in its Jaguar plant in Solihull:
Workplace flexibility is a big factor behind the success of the U.K.’s auto industry, experts say. The Mini plant operates under the “working time account” model, which lets employees build up extra working hours that they can then draw on in downtime. …
“This is impossible in the rest of Europe on any relevant scale because of local legislation that protects workers’ rights and pay,” said John Leech, head of the U.K. automotive section at consultancy KPMG.
FDA regulates e-cigarettes, cigars and pipes
Jacob Grier has an analysis, and predicts a regulatory snarl for e-cigarettes based on a poorly written statute, cartel profits for major cigarette makers, bad news for cigar and pipe smokers, and wider black markets.
Buffalo Bills to pay nominal $3 million for sending text messages
“The Buffalo Bills have agreed to pay up to $3 million – largely in the form of debit cards redeemable only at the team store – to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the team of sending too many alerts to fans who signed up for a text-messaging service.” Plaintiff Jerry Wojcik contended “that the team violated the terms of its text service by sending him 13 messages over two weeks when it promised to send no more than five per week. … He claimed in his suit that the extra texts violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and he sought statutory damages of $500 per excessive message for negligent violations and up to $1,500 per message for willful violations.” His lawyers will pocket $562,500. [Buffalo News]
Liability roundup
- By convention the business/defense side isn’t fond of jury trial while plaintiff’s side sings its praises, but Louisiana fight might turn that image on its head [Hayride, sequel at TortsProf (measure fails)]
- Generous tort law, modern industrial economy, doing away with principle of limited liability: pick (at most) two of three [Megan McArdle]
- Fallacies about Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case go on and on, which means correctives need to keep coming too [Jim Dedman, DRI]
- Interaction of products liability with workplace injury often provides multiple bites at compensation apple, overdue for reform [Michael Krauss]
- Ford Motor is among most recent seeking to pull back the curtain on asbestos bankruptcy shenanigans [Daniel Fisher; related, Washington Examiner] “Page after page he sits on the straw man’s chest, punching him in the face” [David Oliver on expert affidavit in asbestos case]
- Kansas moves to raise med-mal caps as directed by state supreme court, rebuffs business requests for collateral source rule reform [Kansas Medical Society]
- Let’s hope so: “More stringent pleading for class actions?” [Matthew J.B. Lawrence via Andrew Trask, Class Strategist]
Additional Bundy Ranch thought
I will not say I told you so for fear of coming off as ungracious, but Coyote has no such compunction:
I could find about a thousand far more sympathetic examples of folks screwed over by government land use regulations — e.g. people whose puddle in the backyard is suddenly a wetlands that they can’t build on. But for some reason Conservatives all rushed to pile on this one example. Stupid.
Only a thousand?
Don’t ban unpaid internships
Unpaid internships are standard practice at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in political campaigns. Should they be banned for private-sector employers? I answer “no” in a new U.S. News “Debate Club” also featuring a contribution by Dan Rothschild of R Street Institute as well as contributions by three advocates of a ban. Excerpt of mine:
With eyes wide open, students with many options have long sought out voluntary unpaid internships because they’re an arrangement that can rationally benefit both sides.
In an Auburn University working paper last month (via), four economists reported on a study that found internship experience was associated with a 14 percent increase in the rate at which prospective employers request interviews of job seekers. As a predictor of the rate of callbacks, an internship on the resume actually worked much better than a business degree itself.
Yet class-action lawyers and labor activists now attack internships as — in the trendy, elastic new term — “wage theft.” These same lawyers and activists go to court demanding millions of dollars retrospectively over arrangements both sides understood perfectly well at the time to be unpaid — and think shakedowns like these should *not* be called “theft.” …
In modern America, it’s never more than a short jump from “this set-up isn’t for everyone” to “let’s ban it.”
I go on to discuss the sclerosis of the European job market, especially when it comes to youth employment, and observe that the “campaign against internships is part of a wider campaign against low-pay work options in general — call it a campaign to get rid of any stepping stones in the stream that aren’t sturdy enough to support a whole family.” And I note the curious contrast with higher education pointed out by my colleague Andrew Coulson: “Paying to Learn Nothing = Legal. Paying Nothing to Learn = Illegal.” Earlier coverage here. And adapted with additional material into a longer Cato version here.