Employers were not primarily responsible for violence in labor disputes This essay originally appeared in Law & Liberty on August 12, 2019 (here). Thanks to Real Clear Policy (here)! In a prior post (here) I endeavored to dispel the widely-held myth of “government by injunction”—the not…
Labor Law
The Myth of “Government by Injunction”
This essay first appeared in Law & Liberty, on June 5, 2019 (here). Thank you, Real Clear Policy (here)! The subject of labor law, which I practiced for 30 years, has spawned many myths, none more widely-embraced than the canard that, prior to passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Act in 1932, [1] …
The Exploitation of Labor and Other Union Myths
This is the full text of remarks I delivered at the University of Colorado-Boulder on March 14, 2019 at the invitation of the Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy (here). The video of the lecture is here. A self-proclaimed left-wing anarchist took strong exception to what he char…
Getting Over the New Deal with Janus
The real lesson of Janus is that the Court is no longer infatuated with the NLRA and its doctrinal baggage This essay appeared in Law & Liberty on March 13, 2019 (here). Thanks to these sites for the links: How Appealing, Instapundit (here), SCOTUSblog (here), Real Clear Policy (here), and (e…
Beyond Janus: Revisiting the Unified Bar
A slightly edited version of this essay appeared in Law & Liberty on December 24, 2018–my last post of the year. (Here) Merry Christmas! Thanks to SCOTUSblog (here) and How Appealing. Also, thanks to Real Clear Policy (here). The era of Lathrop’s “goose-stepping brigades” is about…
After Janus, What’s Next?
I have written about both Janus (the Supreme Court decision overruling Abood), and the common but often-overlooked practice of “release time” in public sector labor contracts. In a piece for Law & Liberty I combine the topics and suggest that “release time” may be subj…
Union Time, Taxpayer Dime: An Update
Stung by Janus, public-employee unions resort to thuggish tactics to discourage taxpayer challenges An abridged version of this piece appeared in City Journal on November 20, 2018. The wheels of justice grind slowly. Here is a news story from the Austin American-Statesman, reporting on a court he…
Liberty Forum on #MeToo and Sexual Harassment
My regular platform, Law & Liberty, recently hosted a “Liberty Forum” on the topic of #MeToo and the development of sexual harassment as a legal claim. The lead essay, entitled “Desire or Dominance?: Sexual Harassment’s Legal Maze,” was by Rachel Lu. The Liberty…
Remembering Sylvester Petro
Readers may wonder why I have been focusing lately on retrospectives of legal scholars: Robert Bork (here and here), Lino Graglia, Bernard Siegan (here and here), and now Sylvester Petro. In candor, I have become sufficiently disenamored of the state of the legal academy that I prefer to reminisc…
The Long-Awaited Showdown Over Abood
I practiced Labor & Employment Law for 30 years, and was attracted to the subject while in law school. One of my first published articles, in the Labor Law Journal (1980) was on a terribly misguided 1977 Supreme Court decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. The case dealt with the abil…