The waves rippling out from the attacks of September 11, 2001 have touched the U.S. workplace profoundly. From policy-driven rationales for discrimination to marked increases in workers' emotional disorders, the entire fabric of employment in the U.S. bristles with a web of unprecedented legal issues.Dealing with a wide range of these important and troubling matters, this remarkable book offers seventeen insightful evaluations of some of the core relevant concerns, including the following: workplace discrimination in the context of the war on terror; profiling based on nationality; English-only rules; protections provided to immigrant workers; "enemy combatant" designation; electronic information generated about employees; monitoring electronic mail; military leaves of absence; vulnerability to labor strikes in an age of terror; efforts to limit labor's freedom of association based on security-related arguments; impact of national security concerns on federal government employees; employee assistance programs; mental injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder; and workers' stress in the context of federal workplace statutes.As workers, firms, and governments adapt to the new environment of global insecurity, this book will prove invaluable to all professionals engaged in ensuring the economic health of the U. S. workplace. These papers are sure to provide practitioners, agencies, and academics with a clearly outlined starting point for the debates to come.

Most employers know that rewarding their best workers is good business. However, the returnA" on such investment is difficult to measure, and wise employers think long and hard about two of their largest expense items - employee benefits and executive compensation. Today in the United States, under the glare of issues raised by the current financial crisis, company-sponsored benefits programs have become mere shadows of what they once were, and executive compensation has come under intense scrutiny to the point where the Treasury Department monitors it at companies receiving federal assistance. In recognition of the growing importance of employee benefits and executive compensation issues, the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University School of Law dedicated New York University's 59th Annual Conference on Labor to an in-depth examination of these topics. This volume of the proceedings of the 2006 conference contains papers presented at that meeting, all here updated to reflect recent developments. It also includes contributions from other practitioners and academics with extensive knowledge and experience in this specialized field of labor and employment law. Among the topics presented and discussed are the following: - the structure and adequacy of the U.S. system of providing for retirement income; - alternative models of providing retirement benefits, including a government-provided livable pension; - accounting standards as a silent regulatorA" of defined benefit pension plans; - impact and implications of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA); - benefits issues for foreign workers in the United States, both documented and undocumented; - issues for companies that adopt stock acquisition programs as an employee compensation vehicle; - recent healthcare reform proposals at the state level as pilot projects for a national system; - the ERISA preemption scheme and denial of coverage under an ERISA-governed health care plan; and - attorney conflict of interest situations under ERISA. As always, this annual conference captures valuable insights and syntheses of central labor and employment law issues in the United States and will be of great value to practitioners and academics in the field.

In an increasingly global economy fraught with foreign law land mines, the breadth of concerns for lawyers advising clients employing or employed across borders is vast and growing. Finding ways to realize the expectations of the parties when the employment relationship spans multiple jurisdictions with potentially conflicting policies, different conceptions of employment, and even different vocabularies to describe employment events is a major challenge. In recognition of the growing importance of global labour and employment law, the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University School of Law dedicated its 61st Annual Conference on Labor to an in-depth examination of issues arising in this area. This volume of the proceedings of the 2008 conference contains papers presented at that meeting, all here updated to reflect recent developments, as well as additional contributions from other practitioners and academics with extensive knowledge and experience in the field. Experts from both the practicing bar and academia - twenty-seven in all - use their unique strengths to address issues worthy of concern in each juridical realm. Among the many important topics presented and discussed are the following: * application of international law soft normsA" through domestic legal systems; * jurisdictional issues in employee benefits; * extraterritorial application of the U.S. Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); * impact of the application of international human rights standards to employment issues; * drafting of specific types of employment agreements in a multijurisdictional context; * obstacles to cross-border enforcement of restrictive covenants; * how U.S. securities law affects global stock option plans; * workplace electronic privacy issues; * publicly mandated social benefits; * effect of both immigrant and non-immigrant visas on high-skill workers; * how bilateral labor agreements can solve transnational immigration problems; * codes of business conduct; * role of labor rights in foreign direct investment; * application of anti-discrimination laws to religious discrimination across jurisdictions; and * whistleblower protection. An unusual feature of this volume in the series is its in-depth attention to comparative law in the field, with exploration of developments in China, France, and New Zealand, as well as in European Union law. As always, this annual conference captures valuable insights and syntheses of central labour and employment law issues and will be of great value to practitioners and academics in the field. With insights that can assist lawyers engaged in counselling both employers and employees, this volume goes a long way toward meeting the expectations of both employee and employer at various stages of the employment relationship, and handling the disputes that inevitably arise.

Barack Obama's famous Blueprint for Change,A" part and parcel of the campaign that culminated in his historic election as U.S. president in November 2008, openly announced his support for the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1409) suggesting that major change was imminent in U.S. labor and employment law. Although promised legislative change has yet to materialize, there appears to be a growing consensus that the current system for addressing employment disputes in union-represented and non-union workplaces deserves renewed attention and needs significant restructuring. Thus, the issues taken up by this prominent U.S. conference remain relevant to policy debates which will likely continue to rage in the United States for years to come. Based on papers delivered at the 2009 conference of the New York University School of Law's Center on Labor and Employment Law - the 62nd in this venerable and highly influential series - the book presents articles updated by the authors to reflect more recent developments, as well as new papers to ensure a comprehensive and current analysis of both what has actually changed and which trends seem to be gaining momentum. Twenty-two outstanding scholars and practitioners in U.S. labor law and practice pay special attention to such issues as the following: * mandatory arbitration of employment disputes in non-union sector; * call for improved administration of the National Labor Relations Act in expediting elections and reinstating discriminatees; * more privatized forms of dispute resolution such as arbitration and mediation; * card-check and neutrality agreements bypassing government processes; * proposed reform of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; * evaluating market-based defenses to pay equity claims; * EEOC initiatives in public enforcement of equality law; and * challenges to labor relations in state and local governments. . As always, this important annual publication offers definitive current scholarship in its theme area of labor and employment law. As such, it will be of inestimable value to practitioners, government officials, academics, and others interested in developments in U.S. employment and labor relations law and practice.

Private-sector unionization has been in a period of dramatic decline. While much scholarship has sought to explain this development and has called for stronger legal protection of union organizing efforts, the viability of alternative or supplementary forms of employee representation has received comparatively little attention. The potential for such alternatives and the appropriate role of public policy in this arena served as the theme for the 50th anniversary of New York University's Annual Conference on Labor. This long-standing conference brings together government officials; representatives of companies, labor unions, and employees; lawyers; and human resources specialists. In this vital forum, participants discuss important themes in U.S. labor law affecting the American workplace and share new ideas and perspectives for improving the practice. This latest installment includes conference papers and commentary as well as additional essays by professors at esteemed institutions in three different countries (Israel, Canada, and the United States). It addresses such provocative questions as: What do workers want in the way of workplace representation? What role has individualism played in the decline of unions in private companies? Do labor laws unnecessarily restrict the potential growth of employee ownership? The list of contributors comprises both professors and practicing attorneys from a variety of backgrounds. The papers contained in Employee Representation in the Emerging Workplace will assist and appeal to all concerned with these important contemporary labor law issues and especially with the ways in which the United States is considering them. The theme addressed in this particular installment is topical, central to the field, and deserving of attention.

This study is a useful survey of a range of crucial problems in the current industrial relations system. Whether the US's present collective bargaining system can accommodate the massive dislocations of global competitive capitalism is a debatable, and vital, question. This collection offers important insights into the matter. "Choice"

A collection of specially written essays by distinguished legal scholars and practicing lawyers, this book explores the ways in which collective bargaining practices have been forced to adapt and change in response to a radical restructuring in the labor and personnel relations of American businesses. As the contributors demonstrate, current trends--such as a shift from manufacturing to service employment, deregulation, a hostile political environment, and a host of mergers and acquisitions--have made an understanding of traditional labor law doctrine increasingly less central to actual practice. Practitioners today need a thorough grasp of complex new workplace regulations and a mastery of the interplay between legal rules and practical constraints on transactions like plant closings, assets or stock sales, bankruptcy reorganization, and union representation on corporate boards of directors. Labor Law and Business Change places these changes within a comprehensive legal and practical framework and provides expert advice to those who must deal with these developments in the course of structuring particular business transactions.

Are Americans making under $50,000 a year compelled to navigate the legal system on their own, or do they simply give up because they cannot afford lawyers? We know anecdotally that Americans of median or lower income generally do without legal representation or resort to a sector of the legal profession that - because of the sheer volume of claims, inadequate training, and other causes - provides deficient representation and advice. This book poses the question: can we - at the current level of resources, both public and private - better address the legal needs of all Americans? Leading judges, researchers, and activists discuss the role of technology, pro bono services, bar association resources, affordable solo and small firm fees, public service internships, and law student and nonlawyer representation.

Are Americans making under $50,000 a year compelled to navigate the legal system on their own, or do they simply give up because they cannot afford lawyers? We know anecdotally that Americans of median or lower income generally do without legal representation or resort to a sector of the legal profession that - because of the sheer volume of claims, inadequate training, and other causes - provides deficient representation and advice. This book poses the question: can we - at the current level of resources, both public and private - better address the legal needs of all Americans? Leading judges, researchers, and activists discuss the role of technology, pro bono services, bar association resources, affordable solo and small firm fees, public service internships, and law student and nonlawyer representation.

This valuable symposium addresses such provocative questions as:
- To what extent can sexual harassment claims be meaningfully addressed by existing laws such as the National Labor Relations Act and state and federal anti-discrimination statutes?
- Are employer sexual harassment policy initiatives on a collision course with the First Amendment?
- What rights do accused employees have?
- When are employers liable for sexual harassment?
- Can investigations of sexual harassment claims be conducted meaningfully without violating legitimate confidentiality privileges?

This important theme was the focus of New York University's 54th Annual Conference on Labor and Employment Law. This highly significant book reprints the papers presented at the 54th Conference, with several additional papers. In its pages more than 40 noted labor and employment experts from a diverse range of countries and disciplines offer penetrating analyses of developments and trends in such areas as the following:
- Regulation of immigrant labor;
- legal issues facing undocumented workers;
- labor markets in border regions;
- guest worker programs;
- extraterritorial applications of U.S. law;
- employee rights under EU law;
- exploitation of differences in tax and pension laws across jurisdictions;
- the role of antidiscrimination law;
- harmonizing alternative dispute resolution processes worldwide;
- termination policies;
- data ownership;
- linguistic diversity;
- international labor standards and institutions; and,
- transnational cooperation among labor unions.