- NLRB rules employment contracts that specify arbitration for group grievances violate federal labor law even in nonunion workplaces [D. R. Horton, Inc. and Michael Cuda; Ross Runkel, Corporate Counsel]
- Richard Epstein on “living wage” legislation [Defining Ideas]
- In Greece, law providing early retirement for “hazardous” jobs was extended to some that are not so hazardous, like hairdressing, pastry making and radio announcing [Mark Steyn via Instapundit, IBTimes, Reuters]
- “Prosecutor’s double-dippers draw millions from New Jersey pension funds” [Mark Lagerkvist, DC Examiner] Even if convicted on felony charges of misappropriation of public funds, Beverly Hills school superintendent unlikely to forfeit pension [LA Times]
- “Against Forced Unionization of Independent Workers” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Harris v. Quinn]
- Whoops: UAW officials appeal extortion sentence, 6th Circuit sends it back as too lenient [AutoBlog via Kaus]
- New York appeals court makes it harder to get weak NYC job-bias cases dismissed on summary judgment [Judy Greenwald, Business Insurance] Connecticut’s job-bias commission doesn’t seem to consider any cases frivolous any more [Daniel Schwartz]
Posts Tagged ‘NYC’
January 11 roundup
- California’s Prop 65 and the numbness of overwarning [Tung Yin via Bainbridge]
- Time to kill off medical-method patents [Alex Tabarrok, Medical Progress Today]
- Spite decoration: “Gretna fence squabble continues in bitter fashion” [NOLA.com, Louisiana]
- “The Problem With Immigration Lawyers and How to Fix It” [Dzubow/Asylumist via Legal Ethics Forum]
- “Are NYC transit bus drivers prevented from calling police?” [Turkewitz]
- “Circumvention tourism” is travel intended to sidestep medical regulation [Glenn Cohen, Prawfs]
- Abolition of wasteful, arrogant California redevelopment agencies has Tim Cavanaugh ready to kiss a nurse in Times Square [Reason, similarly Gideon Kanner and Steven Greenhut]
Hitchens on nannyism and NYC
David Boaz recalls the great essayist’s remarks at a Cato Institute event. Other tributes: David Frum, D.G. Myers, Chris Buckley.
More: Hitchens’ wonderful 2004 Vanity Fair piece in which he sets out to break a series of pettifogging New York City laws and regulations.
Labor law roundup
- Union withdraws, and NLRB drops, complaint against Boeing over plant location decision [Adler, earlier] “Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Introduces Bill to Reverse NLRB’s ‘Micro-Union’ Decision” [LRT via @jonhyman] Video of “Organized Labor & Obama administration” panel [Federalist Society convention]
- Suing Atlantic City is an established sport for current, former employees [Press of AC] After lawsuit win, former Gotham sanitation worker litters neighborhood with cars [NY Post via Christopher Fountain] Why have House, Senate reversed usual ideological lines on federal employee workers’-comp reform? [WaPo]
- Murder of reformist professors reinforces difficulty of changing Italian labor law [Tyler Cowen] UK considers relaxing “unfair dismissal” controls on employers [BBC, earlier]
- Taylor Law and NYC transit strike: “ILO Urges that U.S. Stop Violating International Obligations It Hasn’t Agreed To” [Ku, OJ; Mitch Rubinstein, Adjunct Law Prof]
- Maryland’s misnamed 2009 “Workplace Fraud Act” bedevils carpet installers and other firms that employ contract workers, and perhaps that was its point [Ed Waters Jr./Frederick News-Post, Weyrich Cronin & Sorra, Floor Daily]
- “Government pay is higher” [Stoll] Notwithstanding “Occupy” themes, interests of unions and underemployed young folks might not actually be aligned very well [Althouse]
- More on outcry over proposed federal restrictions on kids’ farm chores [WSJ, NPR, Gannett Wisconsin, CEI, earlier]
Lawyer’s suit: this breakfast’s no good
The complimentary breakfast provided with membership in the expensive Setai Club & Spa Wall Street used to be really good, according to injury attorney Richard Katz. Then they replaced it with just a cold buffet. The club said it offered Katz a prorated refund of his remaining membership after he complained, but he’s suing for $730,000, including a claim that he was defamed. [Gawker, Above the Law ]
Great moments in public sector unionism
“U Raise ‘Em/We Cage ‘Em” t-shirts from a California law enforcement union [Radley Balko] From the same source, “NYPD cops demand the right to be corrupt.” And on Friday at Cato at Liberty, I gave my take on Ohio’s vote today on whether to approve a package of laws reining in public employee unionism.
More on Ohio’s S.B. 5, including political post-mortem: Michael Barone, Mark Steyn, Ted Frank, Mickey Kaus, Mytheos Holt. Philip K. Howard points out in the WSJ that the LIRR’s disability epidemic is “hardly unique – 82% of senior California state troopers are ‘disabled’ in their last year before retirement” [WSJ; more on LIRR, Nicole Gelinas] Radley Balko has another revealing police union vignette, this time from an incident in which an off-duty cop led another cop on a high-speed chase. And from Brian Strow [Western Kentucky], “Stop, Drop, and Roll: The Privileged Economic Position of Firefighters” [Library of Economics and Liberty]
Wall Street protests roundup
With some help from Cato colleagues:
- As bailouts go, Fannie/Freddie’s is on track to cost more than TARP [Mark Calabria; related, Arnold Kling] “Engineering the Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk and the Failure of Regulation” [Cato forum this past Thursday]
- Just like Valley Forge out there in the snow? Are you sure? [Ann Althouse]
- Student loans have become more burdensome, especially given inability to discharge in bankruptcy. Who if anyone deserves blame? [Kenneth Anderson, Kling, Mystal/Above the Law] President’s proposed student loan revamp “won’t cost taxpayers” (and if you believe that one…) [Neal McCluskey]
- NY police union rep: we’ll sue protesters if they hurt us [USA Today]
- No new graphic ideas since, what, 1893? New Yorker envisions top-hatted capitalists in whiskers [David Boaz] Some demographics behind income inequality [Mark Perry, more, yet more, Will Wilkinson (PDF), Reihan Salam, Political Calculations]
- Unions rally some protesters to intimidate businesspeople at their homes; nothing new about that except the label [CNN, Business Insider, earlier]
Economics of NYC taxi medallions
Medallion prices have surged to the $1 million level. If that’s not enough to get the city to consider letting in more operators, whatever would be? [Mark Perry, Felix Salmon]
“The main force letting protesters stay in the park is old-fashioned crony capitalism”
Gordon Crovitz at the WSJ tells how muddled property rights, combined with the dependence of real estate developers on the good will of New York’s City Council, have resulted in the continuing occupation of Zuccotti Park.
Bastianich: I’m through with NYC due to wage/hour suits
Entrepreneurial lawyers have filed numerous suits against New York City restaurants over alleged violations of tip-splitting and overtime rules, a trend helped along by wage rulings from the state Labor Department. Now one of the town’s best-known restaurateurs says he’s had enough, per the New York Post:
“Money-hungry lawyers, through frivolous lawsuits, are shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan’s restaurant industry,” fumed Joe Bastianich, co-owner of Eataly, Del Posto and Babbo.
Bastianich said the litigation — he has been sued twice — has left such a bitter taste that he’s done with setting up new ventures in New York.
“We opened Eataly and put 700 jobs in the New York economy. Since then we haven’t opened another restaurant in New York, nor will we,” Bastianich told The Post. “We opened three other restaurants, in California and Connecticut, worth 1,000 jobs that could have been here in New York. Someone in Albany needs to understand the agenda, what this is really costing the greatest restaurant city in the world.”
Earlier here, etc.