As public sector budgets have waxed and waned in response to changes in the economic cycle over the past 30 years, public sector employers increasingly have sought to control personnel costs by resorting to measures such as wage freezes and furloughs. Not infrequently, those measures have pitted...

This article was prepared for a symposium at Indiana University Maurer School of Law on Labor and Employment Law under the Obama Administration. The article analyzes the current spate of attacks on public employees with particular reference to three sub-topics: teacher tenure and evaluation...

This book chapter summarizes the preliminary findings of what may be the most comprehensive collection of discipline and discharge arbitration decisions ever subject to systematic analysis. Since the early 1980s, arbitrators on Minnesota's Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS) roster have been...

At the turn of the century, I undertook an assessment of the then current state of workplace rights and obligations. I concluded that the balance of power between employers and workers was “badly skewed” in favor of employers. This article revisits that topic for the purpose of assessing...

It is longstanding tradition for the Secretary of the ABA's Labor and Employment Law Section to prepare a summary of the labor and employment decisions issued during each Supreme Court term. This article summarizes seven labor and employment decisions issued by the Court during its 2003-04 term...

This article addresses issues of accommodation and time with respect to the American worker time crunch problem. On the former issue, I concur in Professor Arnow-Richman's observation that an accommodation approach to addressing the competing pressures of work and family is prone to resistance...

This article analyzes the contours of federal labor law preemption through the lens of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recent decision in Chamber of Commerce v. Lockyer, 364 F.3d 1154 (9th Cir. 2004). This case involves a constitutional challenge brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and...

The global financial crisis and recession have placed great strains on the free market ideology that has emphasized economic objectives and unregulated markets. The balance of economic and noneconomic goals is under the microscope in every sector of the economy. It is time to re-think the...