Feb

14

Will MPS Get Squeezed Extra Hard?

Posted by: | February 14, 2011 | 1 Comment

We’re entering uncharted territory when it comes to school issues statewide. I think it was clear from pretty far back that Gov. Scott Walker and Republican leaders in the Legislature were going to push for state employees and for teachers across the state (who are not state employees, but the state can influence their job [...]

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Jan

20

Will the NLRB Change Its Position on Captive Audience Speeches?

Posted by: | January 20, 2011 | 2 Comments

This is the question that Paul Secunda considers in a new paper, “The Future of NLRB Doctrine on Captive Audience Speeches.” Under established doctrine, employers may require employees who are contemplating unionization to attend meetings at which speeches opposed to unionization are presented.  However, the National Labor Relations Board has recently undergone some significant membership [...]

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Dec

18

Speech Rights of Public Employees: Contextualizing Garcetti

Posted by: | December 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Since its recognition of the right of public employees to speak on matters of public concern in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), the Supreme Court has proven less than generous in protecting that right.  Of particular importance, the Supreme Court held in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), that if employees [...]

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Oct

25

The Most Important Public Employment Law Case: Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968)

Posted by: | October 25, 2010 | 2 Comments

When most hear about public employment law, they believe the topic involves unions and collective bargaining between government employers and public employee unions.  This is not correct. Although public-sector labor law is an increasingly important area of inquiry given the robust union movement in the public sector, an equally important area concerns the constitutional rights [...]

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Oct

13

Supreme Court Takes New First Amendment Public Employment Case

Posted by: | October 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Not exactly Garcetti II, but the United State Supreme Court yeserday granted certiorari in a case involving a ruling affirming a jury verdict for a police chief claiming retaliation under the First Amendment’s Petition Clause.  The case is Duryea v. Guarnieri (No. 09-1476).  (Here is the Third Circuit opinion below and the petition for writ of certiorari). [...]

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Oct

6

NASA v. Nelson and Public Employee Informational Privacy

Posted by: | October 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in the public employee informational privacy case of NASA v. Nelson (oral tanscript here). Rather than reinvent the wheel on this one, I want to direct reader’s to Prof. Lior Strahilevitz’s (Chicago Law) excellent analysis of the oral argument on PrawfsBlawg. Here are some highlights:  Having [...]

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Sep

30

Pickering Free Speech Rights and Cyberbullying by Public Employees

Posted by: | September 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I can’t make this stuff up.  From CNN and Anderson Cooper (with video): For nearly six months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, has waged an Internet campaign against college student Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Using the online [...]

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Sep

27

Craigslist “Adult Services” Proponent Fired by School District

Posted by: | September 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Interesting education and employment law story in the New York Times brought to my attention by one of my employment law students: A teacher at a Bronx elementary school has been reassigned after writing on a Web site about her past as a sex worker. In a short online article in The Huffington Post on [...]

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Sep

27

District Court Keeps Out Social Framework Evidence in Employment Discrimination Case

Posted by: | September 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Thanks to Colin Miller over at the Evidence Prof Blog who has an interesting post up today at Feminist Law Professors about an evidence issue near and dear to my heart in a recent employment gender discrimination class action, E.E.O.C. v. Bloomberg L.P., 2010 WL 3466370 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (can’t find a non-pay version, sorry). The [...]

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Sep

15

Marquette Law Review Symposium – Promoting Employee Voice in the New American Economy

Posted by: | September 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment

The Marquette Law Review Symposium this year will be on a labor and employment law topic.  I had the pleasure of organizing the symposium as part of Marquette’s Labor and Employment Law Program.   The event will be on Friday, October 1, 2010 from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the beautiful new Eckstein Hall Law [...]

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Aug

1

Best of the Blogs

Posted by: | August 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Is American law too complex?  PrawfsBlawg featured an interesting exchange on this question last week.  Eric Johnson initiated the exchange with this post, in which he observed: There is a huge, obvious problem with the law. The bar studiously ignores it. Even the legal academy generally pretends it’s not there. It’s so large as to be [...]

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Jun

28

Trans-formation

Posted by: | June 28, 2010 | 1 Comment

A year ago, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation naming June “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride Month.”  The proclamation effectively incorporated the transgendered community into President Bill Clinton’s 2000 proclamation, which named June “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month.”  In honor of the transgendered community, their legal rights, and the month of June, it seems [...]

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