How American Workers Lost the Right to Strike, and Other Tales

To paraphrase a veteran labor scholar, if you want to know where the corpses are buried in labor law, look for the of course statements in court opinions. By of course statements, he meant propositions that are announced as if they were self-evident, requiring no justification. Each year, thousands of law students read such statements in labor law casebooks. And each year, they duly ask themselves - prodded sometimes by the casebook\u27s notes - how these conclusions could be justified in legal terms. But often there seems to be no answer, and the mystery continues. This Essay recounts the origins of five such of course statements, each of which has had a devastating impact on the American labor movement

The Thirteenth Amendment at the Intersection of Class and Gender: Robertson v. Baldwin’s Exclusion of Infants, Lunatics, Women, and Seamen

In Robertson v. Baldwin, the Supreme Court held that merchant seamen under contract could be legally compelled to work notwithstanding the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude. According to the Court, seamen were “deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults,” and therefore could—along with children and wards—be deprived of liberty. Over the past few years, however, several courts have applied statutory bans on “involuntary servitude” and “forced labor” (a “species of involuntary servitude”) to protect women and children in domestic settings. These cases suggest that Robertson’s categorical exclusion is ripe for reconsideration. Part I of this Article traces its roots to the common law of the household, the shared point of origin both of class and gender hierarchies. It suggests that the Thirteenth Amendment posed a potential challenge to traditional assumptions of natural hierarchy and benevolent paternalism in the domestic sphere. Part II reviews the Robertson decision, focusing especially on justifications for the exclusion. Part III discusses Thirteenth Amendment law and scholarship concerning the physical coercion of services from children and women in domestic settings

The Thirteenth Amendment at the Intersection of Class and Gender: Robertson v. Baldwin’s Exclusion of Infants, Lunatics, Women, and Seamen

In Robertson v. Baldwin, the Supreme Court held that merchant seamen under contract could be legally compelled to work notwithstanding the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude. According to the Court, seamen were “deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults,” and therefore could—along with children and wards—be deprived of liberty. Over the past few years, however, several courts have applied statutory bans on “involuntary servitude” and “forced labor” (a “species of involuntary servitude”) to protect women and children in domestic settings. These cases suggest that Robertson’s categorical exclusion is ripe for reconsideration. Part I of this Article traces its roots to the common law of the household, the shared point of origin both of class and gender hierarchies. It suggests that the Thirteenth Amendment posed a potential challenge to traditional assumptions of natural hierarchy and benevolent paternalism in the domestic sphere. Part II reviews the Robertson decision, focusing especially on justifications for the exclusion. Part III discusses Thirteenth Amendment law and scholarship concerning the physical coercion of services from children and women in domestic settings

How American Workers Lost the Right to Strike, and Other Tales

To paraphrase a veteran labor scholar, if you want to know where the corpses are buried in labor law, look for the of course statements in court opinions. By of course statements, he meant propositions that are announced as if they were self-evident, requiring no justification. Each year, thousands of law students read such statements in labor law casebooks. And each year, they duly ask themselves - prodded sometimes by the casebook\u27s notes - how these conclusions could be justified in legal terms. But often there seems to be no answer, and the mystery continues. This Essay recounts the origins of five such of course statements, each of which has had a devastating impact on the American labor movement

Cultural expectations of muscularity in men: The evolution of playgirl centerfolds

Abstract: Objective: We sought to assess whether cultural ideals of the male body, as illustrated by magazine models, have changed over the past 25 years. Method: We examined 115 male centerfold models in Playgirl magazine from 1973 to 1997. Using the models’ heights and weights quoted by the magazine, together with visual estimates of body fat, we calculated the body mass index (BMI) and fat-free mass index (FFMI) of each model. Results: The Playgirl centerfold models became increasingly “dense ” and more muscular over time, as indicated by the significant correlations between BMI, FFMI, and year of publication. Discussion: These observations, in combination with previous studies, suggest that cultural norms of the ideal male body are growing increasingly muscular. © 2000 by John Wiley &amp

Assessing fishery and ecological consequences of alternate management options for multispecies fisheries

Demands for management advice on mixed and multispecies fisheries pose many challenges, further complicated by corresponding requests for advice on the environmental impacts of alternate management options. Here, we develop, and apply to North Sea fisheries, a method for collectively assessing the effects of, and interplay between, technical interactions, multispecies interactions, and the environmental effects of fishing. Ecological interactions involving 21 species are characterized with an ensemble of 188 plausible parameterizations of size-based multispecies models, and four fleets (beam trawl, otter trawl, industrial, and pelagic) characterized with catch composition data. We use the method to evaluate biomass and economic yields, alongside the risk of stock depletion and changes in the value of community indicators, for 10 000 alternate fishing scenarios (combinations of rates of fishing mortality F and fleet configuration) and present the risk vs. reward trade-offs. Technical and multispecies interactions linked to the beam and otter trawl fleets were predicted to have the strongest effects on fisheries yield and value, risk of stock collapse and fish community indicators. Increasing beam trawl effort led to greater increases in beam trawl yield when otter trawl effort was low. If otter trawl effort was high, increases in beam trawl effort led to reduced overall yield. Given the high value of demersal species, permutations of fleet effort leading to high total yield (generated primarily by pelagic species) were not the same as permutations leading to high catch values. A transition from F for 1990 to 2010 to FMSY, but without changes in fleet configuration, reduced risk of stock collapse without affecting long-term weight or value of yield. Our approach directly addresses the need for assessment methods that treat mixed and multispecies issues collectively, address uncertainty, and take account of trade-offs between weight and value of yield, state of stocks and state of the environment