7,248 research outputs found
Regulatory choices and legal disputes in the fight against COVID-19 infections in the workplace. A comparison of vaccine mandates in the Italian and US contexts.
No full textThis is a comparative study of two countries’ legal and policy actions to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, focusing on Italy and the United States (US). Both nations sustained great loss of life and high infection rates during the first years of the pandemic. This chapter examines how Italy and the United States approached COVID-19 vaccine mandates for workers. Of particular interest are the regulatory choices made, including the choice not to regulate, and the consequences of those choices on the employment relationship. Additionally revealing are the legal grounds upon which regulatory actions were challenged, and how courts balanced the interests at stake. Finally, the way in which the debates over workplace vaccine mandates were framed illuminate national culture and the extent to which each country views labor rights as human rights. To provide context for these insights, the next section examines convergence and divergence in the two countries’ initial responses to the global health emergency presented by COVID-19, and the way in which workplace vaccine mandates were initially embraced
Older Women Workers, the Pandemic, Employment Discrimination and Lifetime Disadvantage
No full textAs a group, older women workers were among those most severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing from both intersectionality and cumulative disadvantage theory, the Model of Lifetime Disadvantage created by Bisom-Rapp and Sargeant helps frame the position of these workers in the labor market prior to and during the pandemic. The model also explains why and how disjointed, incremental legal interventions are unable to meet the challenge of gendered ageism, which surged during the crisis. Disasters produce impacts unevenly on individuals and communities. Older women are a diverse group, whose social position is mediated by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other factors. Given this complexity, equality law is unlikely to be an effective tool for addressing pandemic-related shortfalls in economic opportunity and security. Consequently, public policies geared to the life cycles and demands facing older women workers are necessary for pandemic recovery and resilience
Lecture: Author Susan Orlean
No full textShaker Library and the Shaker Schools Foundation present Susan Orlean, SHHS grad and author of The Library Book, who will speak about her love of libraries and the impact of books on her life.
Susan Orlean grew up in Shaker Heights and graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1973, where she was editor in chief of the school’s yearbook, The Gristmill. She graduated with honors from the University of Michigan in 1976. She has written for the Boston Phoenix, the Boston Globe and has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of seven books, including Rin Tin Tin, Saturday Night, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film, Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in upstate New York
An Ambitious Approach
No full textIn their book, Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce, Susan Bisom-Rapp and Malcolm Sargeant explore the disadvantages women experience in the workforce throughout their careers and the cumulative effects of those disadvantages over their lifetimes.
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Part II of this review is a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book. Part III provides my critical evaluation of the both the goals of this book and its execution. Part IV uses this book\u27s ambitious approach as a springboard for exploring one of my own research projects that has been simply gathering dust.
This abstract has been taken from the author\u27s introduction
An Ambitious Approach
No full textIn their book, Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce, Susan Bisom-Rapp and Malcolm Sargeant explore the disadvantages women experience in the workforce throughout their careers and the cumulative effects of those disadvantages over their lifetimes.
[...]
Part II of this review is a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book. Part III provides my critical evaluation of the both the goals of this book and its execution. Part IV uses this book\u27s ambitious approach as a springboard for exploring one of my own research projects that has been simply gathering dust.
This abstract has been taken from the author\u27s introduction
The Role of Law and Myth in Creating a Workplace that \u27Looks Like America\u27
No full textEqual employment opportunity (EEO) law has played a poor role in incentivizing effective diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and harassment prevention programming. In litigation and investigation, too many judges and regulators credit employers for maintaining policies and programs rather than requiring employers to embrace efforts that work. Likewise, many employers and consultants fail to consider the organizational effects created by DEI and harassment programming. Willful ignorance prevents the admission that some policies and programming harm those most in need of protection.
This approach has resulted in two problems. One is a doctrinal dilemma because important presumptions embedded in antidiscrimination law are tethered to employer practices, many of which do not promote EEO. Simultaneously, society faces an organizational predicament because employer practices are driven by unexamined myths about how to achieve bias and harassment-free environments. Neo-institutional theory explains how this form-over-substance approach to EEO law and practice began and has evolved. This Article builds upon that theory by arguing that favorable conditions exist for a shift from a cosmetic to an evidence-based approach to legal compliance. Three developments mark the way forward: (1) a pathbreaking Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) report; (2) the EEOC’s call for better research on DEI and harassment prevention program efficacy; and (3) new social science research discussing which DEI efforts are most likely to succeed and those most likely to prompt backlash.
To facilitate evidence-based EEO compliance, this Article advocates changes in liability standards. It also recommends the creation of a supervised research safe harbor for employers willing to work with researchers and regulators to assess and continuously improve their DEI and harassment prevention efforts. Finally, the Article urges lawyers to more frequently employ Brandeis briefs in litigation to place social science research directly in front of jurists. Solving the twin problems wrought by cosmetic compliance requires taking seriously the findings of social scientists. An evidence-based approach to DEI and harassment prevention would assist in restoring the promise of EEO law to create healthy, diverse, and bias-free U.S. workplaces
Sex Harassment Training Must Change: The Case for Legal Incentives for Transformative Education and Prevention
No full textIn the wake of the #MeToo moment, employers, legislators, and human resources professionals have defaulted to a familiar solution to what seems like an epidemic of workplace harassment: mandatory sex harassment training. The chosen antidote, however, begs an important question that this author posed over 15 years ago: Does sex harassment training actually prevent harassment? My review of the social science research in 2001 revealed no convincing evidence that sex harassment training curbs harassment. In fact, the scant research available indicated that training, as typically conducted in American workplaces, may backfire, triggering stereotypes about women and people of color, and creating resentments. In light of the empirical evidence, this author decried a developing jurisprudence of education and prevention in employment discrimination law that inoculated against liability those employers who provided harassment and diversity training.
This essay updates that research, with particular focus on the 2016 report published by the co-chairs of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, which failed to conclude that training prevents harassment. The essay reviews suggested changes in training protocols and notes that articles in the popular press questioning the efficacy of harassment training are now common. It argues that the ethos of training and prevention built into sex harassment law has promoted a cosmetic rather than a substantive solution to a serious impediment to equal employment opportunity. The confluence of the #MeToo movement, an important government report with counterintuitive conclusions about training efficacy, and greatly altered public perceptions about harassment prevention presents an opportunity for courts to reevaluate legal doctrines that make training relevant to discrimination claims. The essay concludes that law can incentivize effective interventions for harassment and actual cultural change by refusing to allow training to function as a shield for liability. Creating doctrinal incentives for transformative prevention efforts can strengthen the impact of equal employment opportunity law and make harassment a rare, rather than everyday, phenomenon
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Sex Harassment Training Must Change: The Case for Legal Incentives for Transformative Education and Prevention
No full textIn the wake of the #MeToo moment, employers, legislators, and human resources professionals have defaulted to a familiar solution to what seems like an epidemic of workplace harassment: mandatory sex harassment training. The chosen antidote, however, begs an important question that this author posed over 15 years ago: Does sex harassment training actually prevent harassment? My review of the social science research in 2001 revealed no convincing evidence that sex harassment training curbs harassment. In fact, the scant research available indicated that training, as typically conducted in American workplaces, may backfire, triggering stereotypes about women and people of color, and creating resentments. In light of the empirical evidence, this author decried a developing jurisprudence of education and prevention in employment discrimination law that inoculated against liability those employers who provided harassment and diversity training.
This essay updates that research, with particular focus on the 2016 report published by the co-chairs of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, which failed to conclude that training prevents harassment. The essay reviews suggested changes in training protocols and notes that articles in the popular press questioning the efficacy of harassment training are now common. It argues that the ethos of training and prevention built into sex harassment law has promoted a cosmetic rather than a substantive solution to a serious impediment to equal employment opportunity. The confluence of the #MeToo movement, an important government report with counterintuitive conclusions about training efficacy, and greatly altered public perceptions about harassment prevention presents an opportunity for courts to reevaluate legal doctrines that make training relevant to discrimination claims. The essay concludes that law can incentivize effective interventions for harassment and actual cultural change by refusing to allow training to function as a shield for liability. Creating doctrinal incentives for transformative prevention efforts can strengthen the impact of equal employment opportunity law and make harassment a rare, rather than everyday, phenomenon
Lifetime Disadvantage
No full textLifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce fills a gap in the literature on discrimination and disadvantage suffered by women at work by focusing on the inadequacies of the current law and the need for a new holistic approach. Each stage of the working life cycle for women is examined with a critical consideration of how the law attempts to address the problems that inhibit women\u27s labor force participation. By using their model of lifetime disadvantage, the authors show how the law adopts an incremental and disjointed approach to resolving the challenges, and argue that a more holistic orientation towards eliminating women\u27s discrimination and disadvantage is required before true gender equality can be achieved. Using the concept of resilience from vulnerability theory, the authors advocate a reconfigured workplace that acknowledges yet transcends gender
Citizen piece on the Harvey Prager controversy. The author, Susan Clark Abbot
No full textCitizen piece on the Harvey Prager controversy. The author, Susan Clark Abbott, is executive director of the Hospice of Maine in Portland, and takes exception with the judicial system and the media for implying that caring for the terminally ill is similar to a prison sentence
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