labor unions – Overlawyered

Labor and employment roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 10:10:00 +0000

Twenty years ago, some unions campaigned to make telecommuting illegal. Imagine if they’d managed to stop it [Reason 20 years ago feature, quoting my column back then]
“Surge in working from home raises cyber exposure issues” [Judy Greenwald, Business Insurance]
Provision slipped into CARES Act: mid-sized businesses that take a loan under the program would not be legally permitted to resist unionization [F. Vincent Vernuccio, Mackinac Center]
Another effect of California’s awful AB5: interfering with availability of health care in parts of rural California that rely on itinerant medical contractors [K. Lloyd Billingsley, Independent Institute; earlier here, here]
From before the crisis: insights into where federal Department of Labor is headed [speech by Secretary Eugene Scalia, teleforum with Jonathan Berry and Cheryl Stanton, both Federalist Society events] I’m quoted on the Trump administration record on labor issues, though to state the obvious my evaluation of it differs from the writer’s [Rachel Cohen, Washington Monthly]
More from before crisis: New Virginia employment legislation lays out unusually broad definition of harassment, bad for employers and bad for speech [Hans Bader] Labor history overwhelmingly written by historians partial to the labor movement and its goals, and it shows [Mark Pulliam, Law and Liberty and Independent Review] “Details in new BLS report suggest that most of the gender earnings gap is explained by age, marital status, children, hours worked” [Mark Perry, AEI] “Do Right-to-Work Laws Work? Evidence on Individuals’ Well-Being and Economic Sentiment” [Christos Andreas Makridis, Journal of Law and Economics]

Tags: COVID-19 virus, labor unions, Virginia

Labor and employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Discrimination law roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 11:02:43 +0000

More boxes get banned: Connecticut measure will ban asking age on job applications [Daniel Schwartz]
In closely divided en banc ruling, Ninth Circuit rules it cruel and unusual punishment for prison authorities to deny inmate sex-reassignment surgery [en banc opinion and panel decision; Josh Blackman on a dissent authored by Judge Patrick Bumatay; I was quoted last year in public radio coverage of the Adree Edmo case]
“Fear And Loathing At The Department Of Labor: Has The OFCCP Become A Law Unto Itself?” [Cory Andrews, WLF, more]
“Look for the Union Label, not the Gender Role” [Sarah Skwire]
Freedom means freedom for everyone: joined by Prof. Eugene Volokh, Cato files First Amendment amicus brief on behalf of Colorado graphic/web designer who objects to working on same-sex weddings [Ilya Shapiro and James Knight on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, Tenth Circuit]
CBS News misrepresents the state of pregnancy-accommodation law in the workplace [Jon Hyman]

Tags: age discrimination, government contract compliance, labor unions, pregnancy discrimination, prisoners, sex discrimination, transgender

Discrimination law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:59:18 +0000

Politically effective or not, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s debate attack on Mike Bloomberg over non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) was simplistic, and that’s putting it diplomatically [Robin Shea]
West Coast longshore union braces for bankruptcy [Richard Read, Los Angeles Times]
An issue to watch carefully: most Democratic White House contenders support labor law changes to introduce “sectoral bargaining,” which ropes employers into all-for-one industry-wide negotiations like it or not [Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs, On Labor, approving of this idea]
“Arbitration in the MeToo Era,” Federalist Society panel discussion with Paul Clement, Alexander Colvin, Deepak Gupta, Andrew Pincus, moderated by Hon. Joan Larsen;
Chilling effect: employers fear being hit with unfair labor practices claims if they say things that 1) are true and 2) would be helpful for workers to know [Cato Daily Podcast with Ken Girardin and Caleb Brown]
“Chipotle Wants Sick Employees to Verify with a Nurse. This is a Very Pro-Employee Move.” [Suzanne Lucas, Inc.]

Tags: arbitration, Elizabeth Warren, labor unions, Michael Bloomberg, restaurants, workplace

Labor and employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Down the drain with wasteful coalition politics

Walter Olson — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 11:01:58 +0000

Hotel chain Marriott has a successful program that saves energy and water by inducing guests who stay more than one night to forgo room cleaning and laundry. Some environmental groups actively oppose this program because they are politically allied with labor unions that want to preserve jobs in hotel housekeeping. [Todd Myers, Washington Policy Center]

Tags: environment, hotels, labor unions

Down the drain with wasteful coalition politics is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Public university professor: First Amendment should bar required union representation

Walter Olson — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 05:05:09 +0000

In the 2018 Janus decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects individual public employees from having to financially support unions to which they do not wish to belong. But labor law continues to require “exclusive representation”; individual public employees may not bargain on their own behalf in place of the designated union, nor may they enlist a different union to represent their interests. (Meanwhile, and also problematically, incumbent unions are tasked with a legal duty to represent individual employees even if they reject membership and decline to pay dues.) Jonathan Reisman is an economics professor at the University of Maine-Machias who does not wish to be represented by the recognized faculty union, which he does not believe represents his own priorities either on work-specific issues such as wages and schedules or on public policy more broadly. Reisman is now seeking Supreme Court review of his action seeking relief from exclusive representation on First Amendment grounds [Trevor Burrus and Michael Collins on Cato certiorari amicus brief in Reisman v. Associated Faculties of the University of Maine]

Tags: First Amendment, labor unions, public employment

Public university professor: First Amendment should bar required union representation is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 20 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 10:01:05 +0000

Oregon: “Union-Backed Ballot Initiative Would Limit Grocery Stores to 2 Self-Checkout Machines” [Christian Britschgi, Reason]
Not unexpectedly, given its own precedent, Ninth Circuit rules Idaho inmate entitled to sex reassignment surgery [Amanda Peacher and James Dawson, NPR; pre-ruling (July) KRCC/NPR podcast and interview with Peacher, I’m quoted as in earlier coverage; earlier]
I wrote a personal recollection at Cato of philanthropist David Koch;
“Flight attendants and airport staff now get trained to intervene in what federal officials (falsely) portray as an epidemic of airline-based sex trafficking which can be spotted by good Samaritans who know the ‘signs.'” And mistakes will happen [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason]
Population growth has caused the Ninth Circuit to bulge at the seams. Left-right political advantage isn’t a good reason to break it up, but there are plenty of nonpolitical reasons that are good [Ilya Shapiro and Nathan Harvey, George Mason Law Review]
“The legal profession was regarded by both the authors of The Federalist and Alexis de Tocqueville as the anchor of the republic —- a barrier to destabilizing innovation and a constraint on excessive democratic passions.” What happened? [John McGinnis]

Tags: airlines, labor unions, lawyers, Ninth Circuit, Oregon, trafficking, transgender, WO writings

September 20 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Public employment roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 09:57:19 +0000

States increase pension crisis with payouts for unused vacation and sick time [Steve Malanga, City Journal] “The Politics of Public Pension Boards” [Daniel DiSalvo, Manhattan Institute last year]
State personnel board ordered reinstatement: “San Jose State cop fired after beating gets job back, now with Los Gatos police” [Robert Salonga, East Bay Times via Peter Bonilla]
Time for the bizarre “California Rule” on pensions to go [public employers may not reduce future pension benefits even when based on work not yet performed; Carol M. Matheis, Federalist Society last year, earlier here and here] “Why California’s Pensions Only Deepen Inequality” [Joe Mathews, Zocalo Public Square] “Some L.A. pensions are so huge they exceed IRS limits, costing taxpayers millions extra” [Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times, last December]
“You’re Not Fired: Do Civil Servants Have a Property Interest in Their Job?” [Federalist Society animated Policy Brief with Greg Jacob]
Court opinions and administration actions are restricting push-button access to dues from home health care workers and unions aren’t happy about that [Steven Malanga, City Journal]
California Teachers Association, Service Employees International Union push initiative to end Proposition 13 limits on commercial property taxation [Steven Greenhut, Reason]

Tags: Bay Area, California, civil service, labor unions, Los Angeles, public employment

Public employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The Boston squeeze

Walter Olson — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 16:01:22 +0000

Earlier this month a federal jury found two Boston city hall officials guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion after prosecutors proved that they told a concert promoter that unless it hired members of a union that had supported Mayor Marty Walsh, it wouldn’t get a permit for its event. [Jerome Campbell, WBUR, AP/CBS Boston, earlier here, here, here]

So far, so Boston. Even more characteristic of the city’s political culture: ten Boston city councilors put out a statement decrying the verdict. The really perfect touch? “Some 70 nonprofit organizations, representing environmental, LGBTQ, housing, senior, education, and civil rights advocates,” have also denounced the verdict, claiming that it interferes with “democracy.”

Veteran Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi calls it “bizarre” for these groups to “condon[e] threats from city officials as an acceptable standard for doing business in Boston”:

Supporters of Brissette and Sullivan argue that the case criminalizes advocacy. Suggesting that concert organizers hire union help might qualify as simple advocacy. But organizers of the Boston Calling concert were basically told there would be no permit unless they hired union labor. That’s wrong, and Brissette and Sullivan knew it. Joe Rull, the city’s former chief of operations, who testified under a grant of immunity, told the court that when Brissette wanted to employ that hardball tactic during a previous disagreement concerning the use of nonunion production workers he told him, “You can’t do that, it’s not legal.”

“Keep unions out of grad school”

Walter Olson — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 04:05:35 +0000

“Universities and graduate students do not have a typical employer-employee relationship…. As a faculty member, I believe unionization would be a mistake, most of all in the longer run.” [Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg Opinion; reader discussion at Marginal Revolution]

Tags: colleges and universities, labor unions, National Labor Relations Board

“Keep unions out of grad school” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Land use and zoning roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 09:59:08 +0000

NYC landmark decree will strangle famed Strand used bookstore, says owner [Nancy Bass Wyden, New York Daily News, Nick Gillespie, Reason, earlier] NIMBY resistance to Dupont Circle project behind Masonic Temple insists on preserving views that weren’t there until fairly recently [Nick Sementelli, Greater Greater Washington]
“Barcelona city hall has finally issued a work permit for the unfinished church designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí, 137 years after construction started on the Sagrada Família basilica.” [AP/Guardian] At least they’re not in one of the American towns and cities that would make them tear down work outside the scope of permit before proceeding;
FHA lending tilts heavily toward detached single-family housing over condos, encouraging sprawl [Scott Beyer]
“San Francisco’s Regulations Are the Cause of Its Housing Crisis” [Beyer]
“What Should I Read to Understand Zoning?” [Nolan Gray, Market Urbanism]
I think we can all guess which union was not cut into a share of the work in this Bay Area housing development [Jennifer Wadsworth, San Jose Inside (Laborers union files CEQA suit), Christian Britschgi, Reason]

Tags: Bay Area, labor unions, land use and zoning, NYC, real estate, San Francisco, Washington D.C.

Land use and zoning roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system