8227 research outputs found
Sort by
Protecting Pregnancy
Get PDFLaws to assist pregnant women in the workplace are gaining legislative momentum, both at the state and federal levels. Last year alone, four such laws went into effect at the state level, and federal legislation advanced farther than ever before in the House of Representatives. Four types of legislative protections for pregnant workers currently exist-pregnancy accommodation laws, pregnancy transfer laws, paid family leave laws, and state disability insurance programs but very little is known about how each type of legislation performs relative to the others. This Essay provides empirical insight into this question, which is important for setting legislative priorities. After exploiting the differential timing of these laws\u27 passage at the state level, the Essay finds across multiple specifications that pregnancy accommodation laws and paid family leave laws have several labor market benefits for women who have given birth in the past year. Conversely, pregnancy transfer laws may have unintended, negative consequences for women who have recently given birth. The results suggest that advocacy groups, who have typically favored all four types of legislation, should shift their focus to supporting accommodation and paid family leave laws
Worker Voice and Corporate Governance: Putting Words into Actions
Get PDFTwo decades ago, Margaret Blair and I edited a book focused on governance of modern corporations. At the time it was evident that the dominant paradigm governing corporate governance and behavior centered on maximizing shareholder value. This was a shift in practice that began in the 1980s and was endorsed in 1997 by the Business Roundtable, when it recanted on its 1990 statement that supported a broader stakeholder view of corporate responsibilities.
The effects of the shift from a stakeholder- to a shareholder-maximizing set of practices have been devastating for American workers and the overall economy. It reinforced and accelerated managerial efforts to avoid unions and the break from norms and patterns of wage determination that had been established through collective bargaining. As unions weakened and declined from representing approximately twenty percent of the workforce in 1983 to 10.8 percent in 2020 (6.3 percent of the private sector workforce), employees lost their voice as stakeholders in corporate decisionmaking. Human resource executives in companies became “perfect agents” of their CEOs. Income inequality worsened as a larger share of national income went to capital than had been the case in the decades from the end of World War II to 1980. Wages for average workers have stagnated since 1980, producing a growing gap between productivity and wage growth. This is often referred to as a breakdown in the post-war social contract. One of the most important features of that post-war social contract was that productivity and average wages for nonsupervisory workers moved up in tandem and thereby met President Kennedy’s adage that “a rising tide lifts all boats.
Compensation for Environmental Damage: Progressively Casting a Wider Net, but What’s the Catch?
Get PDFIn the case Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua)–-Compensation Owed by The Republic of Nicaragua to The Republic of Costa Rica (the Costa Rica case), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had to ascertain the compensation amount due by Nicaragua for the environmental damage it had caused to Costa Rica. This was the first time the ICJ was asked to weigh in and settle an environmental damage compensation claim between two states. After a concise introduction in Part I, this Article will first review the distinction between state responsibility for wrongful acts (as applicable in the Costa Rica case) and the international liability of states in the absence of wrongfulness in Part II. In Part III a detailed analysis of the Costa Rica case will be undertaken, with as its starting point the explicit acknowledgment by the ICJ that compensation is, indeed, due for damage caused to the environment, in and of itself, even if that damage is caused to non-marketable components of the environment, such as damageto a wetland or damage to an ecosystem. Next, this Article will critique the absence of transparency in the ICJ judgment on the valuation method it applied to calculate the final compensation amount as well as the paltry sum which Nicaragua ultimately owed to Costa Rica in this case. The general reluctance by the ICJ to apply punitive damages, in principle, does open an interesting comparative law debate on how common law and civil law countries differ in applying punitive damages in environmental cases. Where punitive damages may not be uniformly applied in national jurisdictions, most domestic courts do readily appoint experts in environmental matters given the inherent technical and scientific nature of such disputes. Therefore, this Article suggests the view that moving forward the ICJ should more actively appoint its own independent experts in environmental disputes, rather than merely relying on the evidence brought forward by the parties. This would go a long way in arriving at more robust scientific conclusions which in turn would allow the ICJ to contribute in a more meaningful manner to the development of international environmental and climate change law. Part IV seeks to demonstrate how domestic responses by the judiciary or the legislature increasingly tend to go further and be more proactive compared to the approaches of international regimes and adjudicating bodies when addressing environmental damage claims. This is illustrated based on a brief analysis of both the Deepwater Horizon and Erika oil spill cases and contrasted with the cases handled and interpretation given by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds when interpreting terms such as “environment” and “environmental damage.” Part V offers some concluding thoughts on the overall contribution of the ICJ’s Costa Rica case, including the suggestion that the court could have adopted a more “proactive judicial policy” in such an important transboundary environmental dispute between states
The Ministerial Exception: Our Lady of Guadalupe School and Antidiscrimination Employment Laws
Get PDFThe Ministerial Exception (ME) is a legal doctrine providing that antidiscrimination employment laws do not apply to the relationship between religious institutions and their ministers. Such a notion appears in various democracies, as it aims to confront a shared problem: the attempt to solve the clash between antidiscrimination employment laws and religious autonomy. Liberal democracies strive to protect employees from discrimination, as well as to accommodate freedom of religion, which cannot be fulfilled without the existence of religious organizations. While being able to choose their staff is at the heart of the existence of religious institutions, the fulfillment of such freedom often discriminates against workers on the basis of religion, gender, sexual identity, and so forth.
For many years, the legal outcome of the ME led to quite similar results with distinct shared principles across different countries. However, the latest - judgment of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru combined with the judgment of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has created an American version of the ME that shifts the balance of antidiscrimination labor laws and religious autonomy to bluntly favor religious autonomy. This article suggests that such a shift and new distance from the universal conception of the ME may be the result of an unfinished picture in American law- American ME doctrine needs to be completed in a manner that will connect the missing piece between Our Lady of Guadalupe and Hosanna-Tabor to create a well-balanced model of American ME
Convincing Conservatives: Private Sector Action Can Bolster Support for Climate Change Mitigation in the United States
Get PDFFinding routes to inspire political conservatives’ support for climate change mitigation is crucial in the United States. In an experiment with U.S. participants, we found that conservatives and moderates are more supportive of climate change mitigation when exposed to information about mitigation actions taken by the private sector. These results suggest that the private sector initiatives may be a way to bolster support for climate action across the U.S. political spectrum. We also tested for downstream spillover effects and found mixed results: Compared to reading about government regulations to mitigate climate change, reading about private sector climate actions led to both increased and decreased support for government-led further mitigation through two different pathways. We found an indirect positive spillover effect in which conservatives and moderates perceived private approaches to be feasible and effective, leading to more mitigation support. However, we also found an indirect negative spillover effect in which reading about private section mitigation actions reduced concern about climate change among conservatives and moderates, thus decreasing their support for government policies to mitigate climate change. These indirect positive and negative spillover effects appear to cancel each other out. Additionally, when comparing the effect of reading about private sector action to reading specifically about a carbon tax (rather than other government regulations) there were no spillover effects. We explore the policy and behavioral implications of these findings
Failure to Satisfy Four Prongs of MFW Framework Dooms Pleading-Stage Dismissal of Claims Arising from Controlling Stockholder-Led Redemption of Minority Shares
Get PDF
