Labor Relations Law

ILR 324

Prerequisite: ILR-222
Course Description

Labor Law covers the legal aspects of American labor policy regarding collective bargaining. The class will focus on the application of the amended National Labor Relations Act. It is organized as a liberal arts course and deals with the structure of legal institutions as they have shaped the American industrial relations system. The law of labor relations is presented and evaluated using a conceptual framework that analyzes the rights, duties, and obligations of labor and management in the area of collective bargaining.

Elements Of Industrial Pluralism

  1. The workplace under collective bargaining can function like a political democracy.
  2. This industrial polity endorses, through joint conference, an industrial constitution called a collective contract.
  3. In order to ensure true contractual private ordering the law must be disinterested in the substantive provisions of the collective contract.
  4. Private arbitration is a necessary element in the workplace mini-democracy.
  5. In order to foster arbitration, the processes of the state must not intervene.
  6. Entrenchment of "responsible" union leadership is desirable because rival unionism threatens industrial stability.
  7. To serve themselves best, unions must serve the common prosperity most.
  8. The rights of employees are held and defined at the pleasure of the National Labor Relations Board as public rights.
  9. Individual rights in collective bargaining must yield to the collective rights of the union.
  10. The employees only rights are to bargain collectively and to arbitrate disputes with employers.

Class Outline

Part I: The National Labor Relations Act.

  • The National Labor Relations Act.
  • NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937).
  • Chamberlain and Kuhn, "The Nature of Collective Bargaining."
  • Feller, "A General Theory of the Collective Bargaining Agreement."
  • Gross, "Conflicting Statutory Purposes: Another Look at Fifty Years of NLRB Law Making."
  • Atleson, "The Right to Strike: False Promises and underlying Premises."
  • Klare, "The Public-Private Distinction in Labor Law."
  • Lynd, "Government Without Rights: The Labor Law Vision of Archibald Cox."

Part II: The Question of Representation.

  • Taylor and Witney, "Election Policies of the National Labor Relations Board."
  • Block, Wolkinson, and Kuhn, "Some Are More Equal Than Others: The Relative Status of Employers, Unions and Employees in the Law of Union Organizing."
  • General Shoe Corporation, 77 NLRB 124 (1948).
  • Livingston Shirt Corporation, 107 NLRB 400 (1953).
  • NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575 (1969).

Part III: The Duty to Bargain

  • Atleson, "Management Prerogatives, Plant Closing, and the NLRA."
  • Sockell, "The Scope of Mandatory Bargaining: A Critique and a Proposal."
  • NLRB v. Borg-Warner, 356 U.S. 342 (1958).
  • Fibreboard Paper Products v. NLRB, 379 U.S. 203 (1964).


Part IV: Contract Enforcement.

  • Stone, Katherine Van Wezel. "The Post-War Paradigm in American Labor Law."
  • Alleyne, "Arbitrators and the NLRB: The Nature of the Deferral Beast."
  • Lynd, "Investment Decisions and the Quid Pro Quo Myth."
  • Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U.S. 448 (1957).
  • "Steelworkers Trilogy"
  • Collyer Insulated Wire, 192 NLRB 837 (1971).
  • Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171 (1967).
  • Alexander v. Gardner-Denver, 415 U.S. 36 (1974).
  • Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks, 398 U.S. 235 (1970).




Bibliography

  • Alleyne, Reginald, "Arbitrators and the NLRB: The Nature of the Deferral Beast," Industrial Relations Law Journal 4 (1981) 587-603.
  • Atleson, James Values and Assumptions in American Labor Law (Boston: University of Massachusetts, 1983).
  • Atleson, James. "Management Prerogatives, Plant Closing, and the NLRA," New York University Review of Law and Social Change 11 (1982-1983): 83-108.
  • Block, Richard N., Wolkinson, Benjamin W., and Kuhn, James W. "Some Are More Equal Than Others: The Relative Status of Employers, Unions and Employees in the Law of Union Organizing," Industrial Relations Law Journal 10 (1988): 220-240.
  • Cox, Archibald, "Rights Under a Labor Agreement," Harvard Law Review 69 (1956) 601-657.
  • Cox, Archibald, "Reflections Upon Labor Arbitration," Harvard Law Review 72 (1959) 1482-1518.
  • Feller, David E. "A General Theory of the Collective Bargaining Agreement," California Law Review 61 (May 1973) 663-856.
  • Finkin, Matthew W. "Revisionism in Labor Law," Maryland Law Review 43 (1984): 23-92.
  • Gross, James A. "Conflicting Statutory Purposes: Another Look at Fifty Years of NLRB Law Making," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 39 (October, 1985): 7-18.
  • Kennedy, Duncan. "Critical Labor Law Theory: A Comment," Industrial Relations Law Journal 4 (1981): 503-506.
  • Klare, Karl E. "Traditional Labor Law Scholarship and the Crisis of Collective Bargaining Law: A Reply to Professor Finkin," Maryland Law Review 44 (1985): 731-840.
  • Klare, Karl "The Public-Private Distinction in Labor Law," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 130 (1982): 1358-1422.
  • Klare,Karl E. "Labor Law as Ideology: Toward a New Historiography of Collective Bargaining Law," Industrial Relations Law Journal 4 (1981): 450-482.
  • Klare, Karl E. "Judicial Deradicalization of the Wagner Act and the Origins of Modern Legal Consciousness, 1937-1941," Minnesota Law Review 62 (1978): 265-339.
  • Lynd, Staughton "Government Without Rights: The Labor Law Vision of Archibald Cox," Industrial Relations Law Journal 4 (1981): 483-495.
  • Lynd, Staughton "Investment Decisions and the Quid Pro Quo Myth," Case Western Reserve Law Review 29 (1979): 396-end.
  • Sockell, Donna "The Scope of Mandatory Bargaining: A Critique and a Proposal," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 40 (October, 1986): 19-34.
  • Sockell, Donna. "The Legality of Employee-Participation Programs in Unionized Firms," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 37 (July, 1984): 541-556.
  • Stone, Katherine Van Wezel "Re-Envisioning Labor Law: A Response to Professor Finkin," Maryland Law Review 45 (1986): 978-1013.
  • Stone, Katherine "The Structure of Post-War Labor Relations," New York University Review of Law and Social Change 11 (1982-1983): 125-152.
  • Stone, Katherine Van Wezel. "The Post-War Paradigm in American Labor Law," The Yale Law Journal 90 (June 1981): 1509-1580.
  • Tomlins, Christopher L. "The New Deal, Collective Bargaining and the Triumph of Industrial Pluralism," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 39 (October, 1985): 19-34.
  • Tomlins, Christopher L. The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
  • Zimarowski, James B., "Interpreting Collective Bargaining Agreements: Silence, Ambiguity, and NLRA Section 8(d)," Industrial Relations Law Journal 10 (1988) 465-508.