Labor Law: General Topic Sources

This popular law school casebook provides a comprehensive overview of employment law. It discusses the changing practices in this field, including the rights of part-time workers; affirmative action and discrimination based on religion, age, disability, and sexual orientation; medical inquiries and examinations; workplace violence, dual capacity, and products liability; minimum wage and child labor; the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and health care reform; practices relating to severance pay and the WARN Act; and the effects of collective bargaining, employer bankruptcy, and Social Security.

This casebook is designed for an intensive examination of the union-management relationship throughout its major phases. The representative labor union and the collective bargaining process as it has evolved in this country are given center stage. Generally, the chronology of organizing, bargaining, and contract enforcement is followed, with a review of the law regulating internal union affairs. As in the past, the authors have tried to respond generously to the most significant current developments in the field while simultaneously providing a set of materials that will be truly manageable in the usual three- or four-hour course. This well-organized and comprehensive text covers the historical development of labor organizations, the statutory right of employees to form, join, and assist unions, to organize for collective bargaining purposes, to use the bargaining process to influence their wages, hours, and working conditions, and to administer existing bargaining agreements. It also covers the union duty of fair representation and the regulation of internal union affairs. The authors also include NLRA and LMRA preemption and antitrust exemptions because of their continuing relevance. Significant changes have been made in this new 12th Edition including: the most recent decisions from the Labor Board and the courts dealing with Labor Law issues; a revised and shortened section on labor and antitrust; updated coverage on union waiver of individual statutory forum rights, including 14 Penn Plaza v. Pyett; condensed coverage of internal union affairs suitable for inclusion in a single class; and a streamlined final section on critiques and proposals for labor law reform, offering critical perspectives on labor law suitable for course review and wrap-up.