Author: Cynthia Estlund Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300124503 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
This original book seeks to shape current trends toward employer self-regulation into a new paradigm of workplace governance in which workers participate. The decline of collective bargaining and the parallel rise of employment law have left workers with an abundance of legal rights but no representation at work. Without representation, even workers' legal rights are often under-enforced. At the same time, however, many legal and social forces have pushed firms to self-regulate--to take on the task of realizing public norms through internal compliance structures. Cynthia Estlund argues that the trend toward self-regulation is here to stay, and that worker-friendly reformers should seek not to stop that trend but to steer it by securing for workers an effective voice within self-regulatory processes. If the law can be retooled to encourage forms of self-regulation in which workers participate, it can help both to promote public values and to revive workplace self-governance.
Author: Paul M. Secunda Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
In Regoverning the Workplace, Cindy Estlund embraces “regulated self-regulation” in the workplace or “co-regulation.” This is a distinctly proceduralist spin on New Governance theory. By proceduralist, I mean an approach that emphasizes the existence of procedural devices to mitigate employer unfairness in the workplace. Specifically, Estlund argues for a system of workplace governance in which corporate self-governance is tempered through use of two procedural mechanisms: (1) inside, non-union employee representation and (2) independent outside monitors. Through these devices, Estlund hopes to foster employer-employee collaborations outside of traditional unions and bring a substantial employee voice back into the workplace. History, however, has shown repeatedly that limitless employer power, constrained only by market forces and reputational costs, leads to the worst forms of employer opportunistic behaviors and employee abuse. Although Estlund seeks to apply institutional checks against disingenuous attempts at corporate compliance by employers, I remain unconvinced that employees can either participate meaningfully in employer self-regulation through some form of non-union collective representation or through utilizing independent, outside monitors. Even in these days of limited union density in the private sector, independent unions still remain the best and only effective counterweight against absolute employer domination of the workplace. To hope that employers will see the business, legal, or moral case for co-regulation, and voluntarily reform their sharp practices toward employees, is to believe that employers will start acting ahistorically.
Author: David Weil Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 067472612X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 421
Book Description
In the twentieth century, large companies employing many workers formed the bedrock of the U.S. economy. Today, on the list of big business's priorities, sustaining the employer-worker relationship ranks far below building a devoted customer base and delivering value to investors. As David Weil's groundbreaking analysis shows, large corporations have shed their role as direct employers of the people responsible for their products, in favor of outsourcing work to small companies that compete fiercely with one another. The result has been declining wages, eroding benefits, inadequate health and safety protections, and ever-widening income inequality. From the perspectives of CEOs and investors, fissuring--splitting off functions that were once managed internally--has been phenomenally successful. Despite giving up direct control to subcontractors and franchises, these large companies have figured out how to maintain the quality of brand-name products and services, without the cost of maintaining an expensive workforce. But from the perspective of workers, this strategy has meant stagnation in wages and benefits and a lower standard of living. Weil proposes ways to modernize regulatory policies so that employers can meet their obligations to workers while allowing companies to keep the beneficial aspects of this business strategy.
Author: Julius G. Getman Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 150170365X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 240
Book Description
Labor unions and courts have rarely been allies. From their earliest efforts to organize, unions have been confronted with hostile judges and antiunion doctrines. In this book, Julius G. Getman argues that while the role of the Supreme Court has become more central in shaping labor law, its opinions betray a profound ignorance of labor relations along with a persisting bias against unions. In The Supreme Court on Unions, Getman critically examines the decisions of the nation’s highest court in those areas that are crucial to unions and the workers they represent: organizing, bargaining, strikes, and dispute resolution. As he discusses Supreme Court decisions dealing with unions and labor in a variety of different areas, Getman offers an interesting historical perspective to illuminate the ways in which the Court has been an influence in the failures of the labor movement. During more than sixty years that have seen the Supreme Court take a dominant role, both unions and the institution of collective bargaining have been substantially weakened. While it is difficult to measure the extent of the Court’s responsibility for the current weak state of organized labor and many other factors have, of course, contributed, it seems clear to Getman that the Supreme Court has played an important role in transforming the law and defeating policies that support the labor movement.
Author: Cynthia Estlund Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019756612X Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 249
Book Description
Are super-capable robots and algorithms destined to devour our jobs and idle much of the adult population? Predictions of a jobless future have recurred in waves since the advent of industrialization, only to crest and retreat as new jobs-usually better ones-have replaced those lost to machines. But there's good reason to believe that this time is different. Ongoing innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics are already destroying more decent middle-skill jobs than they are creating, and may be leading to a future of growing job scarcity. But there are many possible versions of that future, ranging from utterly dystopian to humane and broadly appealing. It all depends on how we respond. This book confronts the hotly-debated prospect of mounting job losses due to automation, and the widely-divergent hopes and fears that prospect evokes, and proposes a strategy for both mitigating the losses and spreading the gains from shrinking demand for human labor. We should set our collective sights, it argues, on ensuring access to adequate incomes, more free time, and decent remunerative work even in a future with less of it. Getting there will require not a single "magic bullet" solution like universal basic income or a federal job guarantee but a multi-pronged program centered on conserving, creating, and spreading work. What the book proposes for a foreseeable future of less work will simultaneously help to address growing economic inequality and persistent racial stratification, and makes sense here and now but especially as we face the prospect of net job losses.
Author: Yale Law Journal Publisher: Quid Pro Books ISBN: 1610279433 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 507
Book Description
One of the world's leading law journals is available in quality ebook formats; such editions include active Contents for the issue and for individual articles, linked footnotes, linked cross-references in notes and text, active URLs in notes, and proper digital presentation from the original bound edition. This issue of The Yale Law Journal (the 6th issue of Volume 121, academic year 2011-2012) features articles and essays by several notable scholars. Principal contributors include Daryl Levinson (on votes and rights), Michelle Wilde Anderson (on dissolving cities), and Patricia Bella (on WikiLeaks and national security). The issue also features student contributions on elected prosecutors in legal history and on execution of the mentally retarded as an issue under section 1983 civil rights law.
Author: Matthew W. Finkin Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 1781000131 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 504
Book Description
Economic pressure, as well as transnational and domestic corporate policies, has placed labor law under severe stress. National responses are so deeply embedded in institutions reflecting local traditions that meaningful comparison is daunting. This bo
Author: Breen Creighton Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136281355 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 362
Book Description
This book examines countries that have tried, with varying degrees of success, to use legislative strategies to encourage and support collective bargaining, including Australia’s Fair Work Act. It is the first major study of the operation and impact of the new collective bargaining framework introduced under the Fair Work Act, combining theoretical and practical perspectives. In addition, a number of comparative pieces provide rich insights into the Australian legislation’s adaptation of concepts from overseas collective bargaining systems – including good faith bargaining, and majority employee support as the basis for establishing bargaining rights. Contributors to this volume are all leading labor law, industrial relations, and human resource management scholars from Australia, and from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
Author: Guy Davidov Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0191076856 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
The mismatch between goals and means is a major cause of crisis in labour law. The regulations that we use - the legal instruments and techniques - are no longer in sync with the goals they are supposed to advance. This mismatch leads to a problem of coverage, where many workers who need the protection of labour law are not covered by it, as well as a problem of obsoleteness, as labour laws are not sufficiently updated in light of dramatic changes in the labour market. Adopting a purposive approach to interpretation and legislative reform, this volume addresses this crisis of mismatch. It first articulates the goals of labour law, both general and specific, through an in-depth normative discussion and a consideration of critiques. The book then proceeds to reconsider our means, asking what we need to change or improve in the laws themselves in order to better advance the goals. Some of the proposed solutions are at the level of judicial interpretation, others at the legislative level. The book offers several examples of the way a purposive analysis should be performed in concrete cases. It also recommends institutional structures that are suited to ongoing adaptation of the law to ensure that our goals are advanced even when circumstances frequently change. Finally, in response to the crisis of enforcement in this field, which frustrates the achievement of labour law's goals, several proposals to improve compliance and enforcement are considered.
Author: Carola Frege Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1135020949 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 485
Book Description
"Employment Relations" is widely taught in business schools around the world. Increasingly however more emphasis is being placed on the comparative and international dimensions of the relations between employers and workers. It is becoming ever more important to comprehend today’s work and employment issues alongside a knowledge of the dynamics between global financial and product markets, global production chains, national and international employment actors and institutions and the ways in which these relationships play out in different national contexts. This textbook is the first to present a cross-section of country studies, including all four BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China alongside integrative thematic chapters covering all the important topics needed to excel in this field. The textbook also benefits from the editors' and contributors' experience as leading scholars in Employment Relations. The book is an ideal resource for students on advanced undergraduate and postgraduate comparative programmes across areas such as Employment Relations, Human Resource Management, Political Economy, Labour Politics, Industrial and Economic Sociology, Regulation and Social Policy.