The Editorial Board of the New York Daily News yesterday drew attention to what has been a repeated “pilgrimage” in a stymied search for equal rights and fair treatment: the yearly trip of “some of New York State’s 100,000 field hands to the Capitol” to ask fo... More »
Janus, the Court’s case about public sector agency fees that will be decided this term, is a case that could be framed in two ways. On the one hand, Janus is a case about compelled political speech: the government, by imposing agency fees as a condition of emp... More »
A coalition of six organizations committed to eliminating discrimination against LGBT individuals in the workplace filed an amicus brief in support of the respondents in Janus. Miriam Frank—teacher, feminist, and author of Out In the Union: A Labor History of ... More »
Advocates challenging forced labor practices are largely relying on the Trafficking Victims Protective Act (TVPA). However, as Leora Smith noted, the Thirteenth Amendment is “[l]urking in the background of [these] case[s].” Smith posits that advocates may be r... More »
This term, the Supreme Court will decide Janus, where it will determine the future of agency shop agreements in public sector unions. Despite being a public-sector union case, Justice Ginsburg raised a question on many people’s minds at oral argument: “what ha... More »
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, one of those “boring” cases that no one pays attention to. The question in the case was whether service advisors at car dealerships are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act ... More »
Sometime in the next few weeks, the Supreme Court will issue its decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, one of the most closely watched cases of this Term. In that case, Jack Phillips, the co-owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop, a... More »
Mark Janus’s lawyers are desperate to have the Court decide Janus v. AFSCME without considering any facts. Janus is an Illinois state employee, who is represented by AFSCME Council 31. Like all other employees in his bargaining unit, he is required to pay fa... More »
Most of the coverage of Janus v. AFSCME, like this recent piece in USA Today, simply (and perhaps correctly) assumes that the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court will use the case to overturn Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the 1977 case uphol... More »
Last week the Supreme Court passed up an opportunity to resolve a hotly disputed aspect of employment arbitration law: Whether judges or arbitrators should decide whether class (or collective) arbitration is available when an arbitration agreement is silent on... More »
Two cases before the Supreme Court this Term will determine the extent to which political parties can entrench themselves in office. The most obvious of these cases is Gill v. Whitford, which involves the constitutional permissibility of partisan gerrymanderi... More »
In light of the Court’s grant of cert. in Janus v. AFSCME, I’m posting my new draft article on the subject. The article, Agency Fees and the First Amendment, 131 Harv. L. Rev. (forthcoming Feb. 2018), makes two related arguments, both of which aim ... More »