This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report: unemployment remains at 3.7% for the third month, and the U.S. added 155,000 nonfarm jobs. Reactions are mixed; while the report is “weaker than expected,” it is also a sign of an ... More »
Teachers’ union leaders in Oklahoma have ended their nine-day teachers’ strike which began on April 2nd. In anticipation of the strike, state lawmakers had passed a $6,000 pay raise for Oklahoma teachers, the largest in the state’s history. In addition to pa... More »
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation yesterday that is aimed at protecting public workers’ rights in advance of the Supreme Court’s potentially adverse ruling in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. The new law allows unions to deny full benefits to worke... More »
In advance of Monday’s oral argument in Janus, Bloomberg and the New York Times consider what might become of public sector unions if Abood is overruled. In These Times has a long feature on the advocacy groups who are funding not only Janus but also oth... More »
A group of over two dozen economists and law and economics professors filed an amicus in Janus in support of the respondents. The brief argues that “decades if not centuries of economic theory and empirical evidence” establish that many who pay ag... More »
Several leading professors of labor and employment law have filed an amicus brief in support of the respondents in Janus. The brief, authored by Samuel Estreicher, was filed by Cynthia Estlund, Estreicher, Julius Getman, William Gould, Michael Harper, and The... More »
Slate’s editorial staff voted 45-7 to unionize with the Writers Guild of America East, the company’s organizing committee announced, reports Splinter. Slate’s bargaining unit includes all but six senior newsroom employees and six podcast staffers. ... More »
An amicus filed on Friday in Janus and based on Ben’s new article Agency Fees and the First Amendment, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 1046 urges the Court to reject Janus’s challenge on the ground that it does not raise a valid First Amendment claim. The amicu... More »
AFSCME filed its response brief in Janus last week. It defends Abood‘s distinction between collective bargaining and lobbying as doctrinally sound and makes a number of other arguments. Jurisdiction AFSCME first argues that the Court lacks subject matte... More »
The American Center for Law and Justice, a religiously oriented free speech advocacy organization, filed an amicus brief in Janus critiquing Professor Sachs Agency Fees and the First Amendment, 131 Harv. L. Rev. (forthcoming Feb. 2018) (summarized here). Nota... More »
Last week, First Amendment scholars Professors Charles Fried and Robert Post filed this amicus brief in Janus in support of neither party. On the one hand, Fried and Post worry that First Amendment “doctrines would be substantially undermined were this C... More »
The United States filed an amicus brief last night in Janus v. AFSCME asking the Supreme Court to overrule Abood and to hold that public sector agency fee agreements are unconstitutional. This represents a change in the federal government’s position sin... More »