Taking Back the Workers’ Law: How to Fight the Assault on Labor Rights

[Excerpt] This book focuses on unions and on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) – the agency and the law created to promote unionization and collective bargaining. This is not a story of mourning. Rather, this book advocates borrowing from and building on the methods the civil rights movement, and in particular, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, used to recaptured union power. They teach us that a litigation and activist strategy can overturn unjust judicial decisions, even those by the Supreme Court. More recently, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is proving that a targeted litigation strategy can still be used to “amend” the law

Crumbling Infrastructure, Crumbling Democracy: Infrastructure Privatization Contracts and Their Effects on State and Local Governance

Key arguments for privatizing public infrastructure range from providing money so cash-strapped governments can fix crumbling infrastructure and build much needed new infrastructure to shifting future financial risk from the public to a private contractor. The reality, though, is far different. Provisions commonly found in infrastructure privatization contracts make the public the guarantor of private contractors\u27 expected revenues. Indeed, were it not for provisions that protect contractors from diminution of their expected returns, the contracts would be far shorter and much less complex. An effect of those contract provisions is to give private contractors a quasi-governmental status with power over new laws, judicial decisions, propositions voted on by the public, and other government actions that a contractor claims will affect toll roads and revenues. Giving private contractors such a role may well violate the non-delegation doctrine that bars private entities from exercising power that is inherently governmental. This Article examines the operation and effects of three provisions that are commonly found in infrastructure contracts: (1) compensation events; (2) noncompetition provisions; and (3) the contractor\u27s right to object to and receive compensation for legislative, administrative, and judicial decisions. The operation of these provisions gives private contractors power over decisions that affect the public interest and are normally made by public officials and subject to oversight, disclosure, and accountability - none of which apply to private contractors. The existence and operation of these provisions have gone virtually unexamined and undiscussed. Rather, discussions about infrastructure privatization have been narrowly focused on tolls, reflexive pro- or anti-private or public provisions, and spending or investment decisions on up-front payments. Finally, this Article places infrastructure privatization in the larger context of funding and building infrastructure for the future. It identifies and critiques substantive and procedural issues that must be resolved if we are to have the high quality infrastructure necessary to meet this nation‘s needs and further its goals and if we are to achieve those goals by an open and democratic process

Crumbling Infrastructure, Crumbling Democracy: Infrastructure Privatization Contracts and Their Effects on State and Local Governance

Key arguments for privatizing public infrastructure range from providing money so cash-strapped governments can fix crumbling infrastructure and build much needed new infrastructure to shifting future financial risk from the public to a private contractor. The reality, though, is far different. Provisions commonly found in infrastructure privatization contracts make the public the guarantor of private contractors\u27 expected revenues. Indeed, were it not for provisions that protect contractors from diminution of their expected returns, the contracts would be far shorter and much less complex. An effect of those contract provisions is to give private contractors a quasi-governmental status with power over new laws, judicial decisions, propositions voted on by the public, and other government actions that a contractor claims will affect toll roads and revenues. Giving private contractors such a role may well violate the non-delegation doctrine that bars private entities from exercising power that is inherently governmental. This Article examines the operation and effects of three provisions that are commonly found in infrastructure contracts: (1) compensation events; (2) noncompetition provisions; and (3) the contractor\u27s right to object to and receive compensation for legislative, administrative, and judicial decisions. The operation of these provisions gives private contractors power over decisions that affect the public interest and are normally made by public officials and subject to oversight, disclosure, and accountability - none of which apply to private contractors. The existence and operation of these provisions have gone virtually unexamined and undiscussed. Rather, discussions about infrastructure privatization have been narrowly focused on tolls, reflexive pro- or anti-private or public provisions, and spending or investment decisions on up-front payments. Finally, this Article places infrastructure privatization in the larger context of funding and building infrastructure for the future. It identifies and critiques substantive and procedural issues that must be resolved if we are to have the high quality infrastructure necessary to meet this nation‘s needs and further its goals and if we are to achieve those goals by an open and democratic process

Hoffman Plastics as Labor Law— Equality at Last for Immigrant Workers?

This Article recounts the history of the NLRA, the events leading up to Hoffman Plastics, and the impact that history and case law have had on worker rights as an essential foundation for constructing a strategy to reverse and end this pernicious longstanding dynami

Privatizing Information and Information Technology – Whose Life is it Anyway?, 22 J. Marshall J. Computer & Info. L. 375 (2004)

As the United States government collects personal and private information about each of us, the government must also consider ways of preventing that information from falling into the wrong hands. In the wrong hands, that information can be turned against the individual – from blackmailing to more nefarious acts, such as terrorism. However, the government trend of outsourcing information gathering tasks has dramatically increased the chances of the wrong people receiving sensitive information. The government has been outsourcing information gathering tasks because of their failure to develop sufficient in-house expertise to handle information gathering. A second reason is that some in the government believe it should separate itself from functions, such as information gathering, that are not viewed as core governmental functions. This article discusses what makes information so special and whether information in private rather than public hands is likely to create special problems. Finally, the article discusses whether there are ways to prevent or remedy problems that arise

Crumbling Infrastructure, Crumbling Democracy: Infrastructure Privatization Contracts and Their Effects on State and Local Governance

Key arguments for privatizing public infrastructure range from providing money so cash-strapped governments can fix crumbling infrastructure and build much needed new infrastructure to shifting future financial risk from the public to a private contractor. The reality, though, is far different. Provisions commonly found in infrastructure privatization contracts make the public the guarantor of private contractors\u27 expected revenues. Indeed, were it not for provisions that protect contractors from diminution of their expected returns, the contracts would be far shorter and much less complex. An effect of those contract provisions is to give private contractors a quasi-governmental status with power over new laws, judicial decisions, propositions voted on by the public, and other government actions that a contractor claims will affect toll roads and revenues. Giving private contractors such a role may well violate the non-delegation doctrine that bars private entities from exercising power that is inherently governmental. This Article examines the operation and effects of three provisions that are commonly found in infrastructure contracts: (1) compensation events; (2) noncompetition provisions; and (3) the contractor\u27s right to object to and receive compensation for legislative, administrative, and judicial decisions. The operation of these provisions gives private contractors power over decisions that affect the public interest and are normally made by public officials and subject to oversight, disclosure, and accountability--none of which apply to private contractors. The existence and operation of these provisions have gone virtually unexamined and undiscussed. Rather, discussions about infrastructure privatization have been narrowly focused on tolls, reflexive pro- or anti- private or public provisions, and spending or investment decisions on up-front payments. Finally, this Article places infrastructure privatization in the larger context of funding and building infrastructure for the future. It identifies and critiques substantive and procedural issues that must be resolved if we are to have the high quality infrastructure necessary to meet this nation\u27s needs and further its goals and if we are to achieve those goals by an open and democratic process

Teaching Labor Law Within a Socioeconomic Framework

Ellen Dannin contends that labor law presents an ideal subject for teaching within a socioeconomic framework, because issues of law, power, economics, and social ordering have always existed within the employment relationship, and the National Labor Relations Act\u27s express purpose is to alter every aspect of those relationships