This law school casebook includes materials dealing with the labor and employment law rights of public employees. It covers constitutional rights, civil service, tenure, overtime, pension, and bankruptcy laws specific to public employees, and also public employee collective bargaining statutes and activities of public-sector unions and employers. It emphasizes how the law governing the public sector workplace differs from the private sector. It also focuses on how public-sector labor rules vary significantly among states (and the federal sector) in important areas including employee coverage, union organizing, the duty to bargain, scope of bargaining, impasse resolution (strikes and alternatives to strikes), bargaining units, and grievance arbitration. The book facilitates classroom examination of different policies, issues, and concerns that arise when the employer is a government entity.

Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace prepares students for the practice of labor law by introducing them to the principles of American labor law and many of the issues that labor attorneys face. The book is organized around contemporary problems as a means of teaching the core principles of labor law. Although the primary focus of the book is the National Labor Relations Act, considerable attention is given to the Railway Labor Act and public-sector labor laws because of their growing importance in contemporary practice. The third edition takes account of changes in the law since the first edition and second editions were published and in particular new interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act by the National Labor Relations Board and recent state restrictions on public sector collective bargaining.