The federal government shutdown is precipitating a wave of lawsuits and talk of sick-outs and strikes. That should be no surprise when approximately 400,000 federal employees are being required to work without pay. Wait, “required.”? Talk of being “forced” or ... More »
In addition to adopting a new “Ban the Box” statute, California also recently issued innovative regulations applying general employment discrimination law principles to criminal record screening. The previous post provided some background and discussed how the... More »
On January 1, California’s new “Ban the Box” law took effect. Although California is known for its progressive labor policies, it also has a dismal history of racialized mass incarceration, making this development especially important. The new law fits squarel... More »
It seems like ages ago, but before the President starting telling NFL owners whom to fire, the big anthem story had been the failure of any NFL team to hire Colin Kaepernick out of free agency. Now that topic is back with Kaepernick filing a grievance against ... More »
With Vice President Pence staging a counterprotest and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones issuing ultimatums to his team, it is worth reiterating that disciplining NFL players for taking a knee likely is illegal. Let us count the ways. Unlike a constitutional Fi... More »
What happens when a worker’s hand gets crushed in the machinery of a fast-moving poultry processing line? You might expect him to get sent to a doctor and supported by workers comp, but a chilling article from the Center for Investigative Reporting tells a dif... More »
This is the final post in a three-part series. This is the last in a series of three posts on the prominent perverse consequences argument against “Banning the Box.” The argument is that efforts to curtail employer exclusion of people with criminal records in... More »
This post is the second in a three-part series. This is the second in a series of three posts on the prominent perverse consequences argument that “Banning the Box” inadvertently exacerbates the racial inequality it purports to redress. The first post critici... More »
This post is the first in a three-part series. Nothing sells like a perverse consequences argument. The movement to “Ban the Box” has run into an objection familiar from debates over the minimum wage and affirmative action: this policy could exacerbate exactl... More »
What does mass incarceration have to do with labor law? I suggest some new and disturbing answers in a report released earlier today in collaboration with colleagues at the UCLA Labor Center and A New Way of Life Reentry Project. We highlight the labor marke... More »
There is a math problem with Uber’s most powerful argument for classifying its drivers as independent contractors, not employees. That argument emphasizes how weakly attached to Uber most drivers are, as evidenced by how many drivers work very few hours per w... More »
Amidst all the hubbub about whether Uber drivers et al. are to be classified legally as “employees,” some important things are easy to miss. First, these employee status issues are longstanding and widespread beyond the gig economy. Misclassification plagues... More »