I spent Friday and Saturday at the Fifth Annual Labor and Employment Law Colloquium.  I attended many presentations, all of which were extremely engaging and informative.  I presented Friday afternoon at Washington University School of Law on a panel with Thomas Burch (Florida State) and Zev Eigen (Northwestern). 

 I am starting research on a project that will look at arbitration decisions in the union sector to inform the debate over the adquacy of labor arbitration for deciding statutory employment disputes.  The slides of my presentation and accompanying handout are attached to this post.

 Thomas proposed regulation of mandatory arbitration of consumer, employment, and other disputes to make it more fair.  My understanding is that his paper is still in draft form, but I will post a link to it once it is publicly available. 

Zev proposed changes to the procedures used for mandatory arbitration of employment disputes, including updating the Due Process Protocol, to make it a more optimal way to structure rights disputes.  His co-authored article is available here. 

The papers from the Warns Institute are now available.

Thank you to everyone who attended this session at the LWI Biennial Conference.  We have now finished compiling the master list of all the great suggestions reported out to the group, which is attached.  The slides and handouts are also attached.  And at one participant's suggestion, we have attached a sample PowerPoint of possible ways to use "clicker" exercises.

I had the pleasure of presenting with Luke Morgan and Lars Smith at the KBA Convention today.  Attached are the materials, the slides, and my notes for our presentation, "Using Visual Aids to Enhance Your Case."  You can find the video of Professor Smith's "how to" segment here https://www.law.louisville.edu/sites/www.law.louisville.edu/files/Powerpoint.for.the.Courtroom.m4v

Remember, it's not too late to register for the Warns Institute on June 24 & 25.  We have a great line-up of speakers this year.  http://www.law.louisville.edu/2010WarnsInstitute

  My article, What Hath the Twenty First Century Wrought?  Issues in the Workplace Arising from New Technologies and How Arbitrators Are Dealing with Them, forthcoming in Transactions:  Tennessee Journal of Business Law is now available on SSRN.

Here's the abstract. 

Employees are using new technologies.  They are using GPS, electronic mail, the Internet, cell phones and other handheld devices, blogs, Twitter, texting and social networking sites.  They are using new technologies while at the workplace and while away from the workplace, while working and while engaging in personal pursuits.  They may be using the technologies appropriately or to the detriment of their employers.  Employers are also using new technologies.  They are monitoring their employees, both in the workplace and away from it.  They too may be doing so appropriately, or they may be doing so in a manner invasive of their employees' privacy or dignity.

Needless to say, the use of these new technologies gives rise to employment disputes that differ in kind from those of times past.  Many scholars have written about the failure of the law to keep pace with the workplace changes brought about by new technologies.  Many have also written about the failure of the federal and state statutory laws and of the common law to systematically and sensibly resolve employment disputes arising out of the use of new technologies.  But one place that disputes arising out of new technologies are being grappled with in a systemic manner, and handled in a relatively sensible manner, is by arbitrators in the union sector.

This article surveys the types of issues being arbitrated, the criteria arbitrators use to decide the cases, and the outcomes of the cases.  It builds on and updates my prior work in the area. Section I provides an introduction to the article.  Section II provides an overview of my research.  Section III addresses the types of cases involving new technologies arising as challenges to discipline for lack of just cause.  Section IV addresses the related issue of employer monitoring of employees.  Section V focuses on cases involving new technologies that have arisen under provisions of the collective bargaining agreement other than a just cause provision.

 

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The Conflict Resolution and the Economic Crisis conference materials are now available online.

The 27th Annual Warns Labor & Employment Law Institute will be held on June 24 and June 25 at the Galt House in Louisville, KY.

William Gould, a Professor of Law at Stanford University and former Chair of the National Labor Relations Board, is the keynote speaker. Mr. Gould is a prolific scholar of labor and discrimination law as well as a critically acclaimed author of nine books and more than sixty law review articles.

Complimentary wireless access, as well as hard wired Internet connections, will be available in the meeting rooms.

Save the date! More details are forthcoming.

http://www.law.louisville.edu/node/4099

 

I had the honor of serving as the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section ADR Committee's Scholar in Residence at their mid-winter meeting.  Attached are the slides of my closing presentation, "What Hath the Twenty-First Century Wrought? Issues in the Workplace Arising from New Technologies and How Arbitrators Are Dealing with Them." All conference papers are available on the Committee's web-page. 

I had the honor of serving as the ABA Labor and Employment Law Section ADR Committee's Scholar in Residence at their mid-winter meeting.  Attached are the slides of my opening presentation, "A Scholar's Guide to Lawyering Skills that Just Might Tip the Scales in Close Arbitration Cases."  All conference papers are available on the Committee's web-page.