- Feds indict activist for handing out “jury nullification” tracts outside courthouse [Volokh, Greenfield] Anti-abortion billboard taken down after demand by NYC pol; co. says fear of violence was spur [NY Times]
- Pigford class action (USDA bias against black farmers) defended and assailed [Friedersdorf and readers, Daniel Foster/NR, Mark Thompson/LOG, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- Avik Roy on Pennsylvania defensive-medicine study [Forbes]
- Backstory: Scott Walker battled AFSCME for years as Milwaukee County exec [Aaron Rodriguez, Hispanic Conservative] “Wisconsin’s teachers required to teach kids labor union and collective bargaining history” [Daily Caller]
- “The return of the $0 Costco fuel settlement” [CCAF]
- Historic preservation vs. the obesity crusade: should a vintage Coke sign in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood come down? [SFGate]
- Law blog that covers a single beat closely can turn itself into a valued practice tool [Eric Turkewitz on John Hochfelder’s New York Injury Cases]
- “Soda suits: Banzhaf browbeats school officials” [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Posts Tagged ‘labor unions’
Wisconsin: a frisky-union vignette
Headline from last August, recalled by James Taranto: “Milwaukee teachers union files suit over lack of Viagra coverage.” The lack of coverage for erectile dysfunction drugs amounted to sex discrimination, according to the complaint. [Journal-Sentinel]
More on the Wisconsin union showdown from Cato Institute scholars Chris Edwards (Virginia has much sharper restrictions on public-employee unionism than what Gov. Scott Walker is proposing), Neal McCluskey (for the kids? really?), David Boaz (president, with his entire political machine, “is inserting himself into a medium-sized state’s battle over how to balance its budget,” Roger Pilon (unions’ quarrel is with voters) — and see also this 2009 background paper on the unsustainable costs of some union victories.
December 16 roundup
- Judge Kozinski blasts prosecution of McAfee exec Probhat Goyal [Ribstein, Greenfield; related on federal overcriminalization, Rittgers/Cato]
- “If only laws were like sausages” [Robert Pear, NY Times]
- “Public Radio Looks at California ADA Lawsuits” [Frith, CJAC on “This American Life,” Thomas Mundy and Morse Mehrban]
- Guitar maker described as “litigation-addled”: “Gibson continues its IP-based business plan” [Coleman]
- Judge who heard Madison County, Ill. asbestos docket retires, is picked by lawyers as trustee of asbestos bankruptcy trust [Chamber-backed MC Record]
- Ted Frank’s Center for Class Action Fairness objects to Classmates.com class action settlement [CCAF, more, yet more]
- New Labor Department regs could chill management speech to workforce [Russ Brown, Open Market]
- Too bad there weren’t legal blogs around in 2000, some light might have been shed on Bush v Gore [Legal Blog Watch, Ann Althouse] Hey wait a minute [ten years ago on Overlawyered]
November 2 roundup
Headline stories of the week:
- Crude for sure: Law.com runs highlights of the tapes of American lawyers stage-managing the Ecuador-Chevron suit [Corporate Counsel, ShopFloor]
- Why such broad gag orders in Kansas pain-doc advocacy case? [Jacob Sullum, Reason; Adam Liptak, NYT]
- Spectacular fall of lawyer Adorno in Miami fire fee case [ABA Journal, PoL, earlier]
- Fiscal 2010 saw biggest increase in regulatory burdens placed on US economy since measurements began [Heritage]
- Watch for nonstandard definitions of “rights”: “Unions Fear Rollback of Rights Under Republicans” [NYT]
- Marijuana, freedom and the California ballot [David Boaz, Cato at Liberty] Alas, text of Proposition 19 also contains “antidiscrimination” provisions that restrict private liberty [David Henderson]
- New papers from U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform unveiled at last week’s Legal Reform Summit: ways to fix the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) (more on FCPA from Nathan Burney via Greenfield); Beisner-Miller-Schwartz on cy pres in class actions, via CCAF and Trask; and a new paper on asbestos claiming in Madison County, Illinois;
- Will Supreme Court clients be as keen on hiring Tribe after revelation of his letter trashing Sotomayor? [Whelan, NRO]
Firefighters who let houses burn
John Berlau recalls Memphis, Kansas City and Chicago strikes accompanied by arson, sabotage, and loss of both life and property:
If the IAFF [International Association of Fire Fighters] and its allies get their way with federal legislation to mandate collective bargaining for public-safety officers in every American community, the deadly fire-fighter strikes of the recent past will almost certainly be a part of our “progressive” future. …The biggest congressional priority of the IAFF over the past few years has been the so-called Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would force unionization and collective bargaining on every one of the nation’s local fire departments. … According to the watchdog Public Service Research Council, public-employee strikes quadruple, on average, in the years after state laws mandating public-sector collective bargaining take effect.
International human rights roundup
Developments in an emerging area of law much explored in my forthcoming book:
- “Developing Countries Could Sue for Climate Action — Study” [NYT/ClimateWire] “Do We Need Global Governance To Combat Global Warming?” [Ilya Somin/Volokh]
- From UN and oddly uncontroversial Human Rights Watch, pressure on U.S. to alter labor law in union-friendly direction [ShopFloor, Chamber Post]
- Recent academic conferences: “2009 National Forum on the Human Right to Housing” [Nov. 2009, Georgetown Law] “International and Comparative Law Review Symposium on the significance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” [Loyola L.A., Mar. 2010]
- At whose expense? “UN General Assembly Invents a Right to Water and Sanitation” [GGW, BoingBoing]
- Again, some survivors of U.S.S. Cole attack on U.S. military personnel sue government of Sudan [Jay Nordlinger/NRO “Corner”, related paper by Elizabeth Bahr, George Mason]
- Copying liberals’ homework, some anti-abortionists claim mantle of international human rights for their cause [NRO “Bench Memos,” approvingly, via Ku/OJ]
- “An Eminently Sound Approach to (Supposed) International Human Rights Norms, from the 9th Circuit” [Volokh]
- What Keynes knew: after 92 years, Germany finally pays off the last Versailles reparations [Marian Tupy, Cato at Liberty]
Why would a union favor its own decertification?
The better to sue, it seems [Marcia McCormick/Workplace Prof]:
The NFL Players Association is seeking player approval to decertify in advance of a potential lockout by owners in March when the current collective bargaining agreement expires, according to the SportsBusiness Journal. Decertifying would allow players to sue the owners under antitrust laws if the owners did lock the players out. And any effort to impose a labor agreement on the players could provide the players with treble damages.
This was the tactic the players resorted to in 1989, and it eventually gave them enough leverage to establish free agency in 1993, when the players recertified the association as their exclusive representative.
September 3 roundup
- TSA asserts security-line authority against … suspected embezzlers? [Coyote, Ken at Popehat]
- “How the Next Hurricane Could Bankrupt Florida” [Eli Lehrer, Frum Forum]
- In Yahoo settlement “vast majority of the class gets nothing” [Frith, Cal Civil Justice]
- Royal road to legal riches: work for the federal prosecutor in Manhattan [David Zaring, Conglomerate]
- Taxpayers, get ready to bail out union pension plans [The Lid]
- Japan moving closer to U.S.-style securities litigation? [D&O Diary]
- “Is the Contemporary Supreme Court Really That Conservative?” [Bartels, ConcurOp]
- “EEOC encourages anonymous harassment complaints” [eleven years ago at Overlawyered]
SEC’s “proxy access” initiative
Prof. Bainbridge pushes back against an Obama administration boon for shareholder activism, and detects “a political payoff by the Democrats in Congress and at the SEC for their buddies at union and state and local government pension funds.” More: comment letter to SEC (PDF) from John Endean of American Business Conference; Larry Ribstein.
August 11 roundup
- General Mills sends lawyers after local “My Dough Girl” Bakery [Consumerist via Amy Alkon]
- But he can reapply in five years: “Lawyer Takes Plea in Case Over His Hardball Litigation Tactics, Will Be Disbarred” [ABA Journal, California]
- “Shame on Elie Wiesel” for threatening a lawsuit over his fictionalization in a stage play [Terry Teachout]
- State AGs dive into HIPAA and health privacy enforcement [Nicastro, Health Leaders Media]
- More highlights from Daniel Okrent book on Prohibition [Tabarrok]
- Denver school board investment fiasco [Popehat]
- Russell Jackson on the Yoo-Hoo chocolate beverage class action [Consumer Class Actions and Mass Torts, earlier]
- California court rules state’s Moscone (“little Norris-LaGuardia”) Act unconstitutional [Workplace Prof]