The Starbucks at the Milwaukee Hilton: Unit Clarification Story

Starbucks-logo

It is so rare that I actually get to write a post about traditional labor law that I usually jump at the chance.   Especially when the labor law concerns a local Milwaukee institution that most of us are aware of.

What you might not have know is that Hilton food and beverage employees are represented by a union.  Recently, the Starbucks located inside the Hilton became unionized as well. The question became whether the Starbucks employees could just join the Hilton union.

Even though the local regional director in Milwaukee ruled that such a combination was lawful, the National Labor Relations Board (in a 2-0 decision) reversed because (according to BNA) (subscription required):

Chairman Wilma B. Liebman and Member Peter C. Schaumber found that the baristas, who are employed by Milwaukee City Center LLC, have a separate identity from the bargaining unit and constitute a separate appropriate unit and that the two groups do not share an overwhelming community of interest.

The board emphasized the lack of interchange between Starbucks baristas and food/beverage employees in the bargaining unit and the absence of common supervision of the two groups.

Actually, not much controversy here. Just wanted the Marquette Faculty Law Blog readers to have a taste of what goes on in labor law once in a while.

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It’s National Punctuation Day

SemicolonToday is National Punctuation Day.  Yes, there really is such a day (it’s the sixth annual one, actually), and grammar geeks like me are celebrating.  There’s even a national baking contest where contestants are supposed to bake something in the shape of a punctuation mark.

Lynne Truss, the author of the best-selling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves:  The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, says that “[P]unctuation is a courtesy designed to help readers understand a story without stumbling.”  It’s a courtesy that applies not only to stories, of course, but to any written product – letters, articles, memos, briefs, and emails.  Punctuation clarifies the writer’s meaning.  Take these seven words:  A woman without her man is nothing.  There are two very different readings of this sentence, depending on how it is punctuated.  It could be:  A woman, without her man, is nothing.  Or it could be:  A woman:  without her, man is nothing.  What a difference punctuation makes!

What’s your favorite punctuation mark?

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Should Wisconsin Stop Subsidizing Law School Tuition?

In a comment on an earlier post, Daniel Suhr suggested that in this time of economic downturn the state of Wisconsin should consider eliminating the tuition subsidy that it provides for students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. As he points out, virtually of all the graduates of the law school begin their careers making higher salaries than the average Wisconsin resident and thus are arguably in a better position to pay for their legal education than the state’s taxpayers. Marquette would obviously benefit from such a policy change, but the proposal has merit above and beyond what it would do to restore the competitive balance between the state’s two law schools.

There is also nothing particularly radical about such a proposal. In fact, several highly regarded state law schools in different parts of the country have already all but abandoned subsidies for in-state students.

At the University of Virginia, where I am currently teaching as a visiting professor, out-of-state students pay tuition of $43,800, while Virginia residents pay almost as much, $38,800 (or 88.6% of out-of-state tuition). The gap is even narrower at the University of Michigan, where the out-of-state/in-state differential is $46,010 vs. $43,010 (or 93.5%). The University of Minnesota is somewhat more generous to Minnesota residents, but such students still pay 73% as much as out-of-staters ($25,324 vs. $34,726).
In contrast, in-state law students at the University of Wisconsin pay only $16,426 in tuition, which is just 45% of the $36,350 paid by most out-of-state students. (Because of the reciprocity compact, Minnesota residents attending the UW law school are charged $26,342.)

If in-state students at the University of Wisconsin Law School were required to pay the 93.5% of out-of-state tuition paid by Michigan residents at the University of Michigan, Marquette would actually have a slight tuition advantage ($32,410 vs. $33,987).

As Daniel Suhr also noted, former state representative Frank Lasee proposed several years ago that the state stop subsidizing public legal education. The idea failed to take hold at that time, but conditions may be right to revive the idea.

Tuition figures for the five law schools mentioned in this post are taken from the law schools’ web pages.

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