“Washington [the state] is getting hit with so many lawsuits over budget cuts that it’s not clear at times who controls the state’s purse strings: lawmakers or the court system. … Overall, the state has been sued more than a dozen times because of cuts lawmakers made in recent years to curtail state spending and balance the budget.” A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the groups suing the state over cuts, describes program cuts as “violating people’s rights” and says the state should raise revenue if it doesn’t want to be sued. [Seattle Times] (& Bainbridge).
Tagged as:
labor unions,
public employment,
taxpayers,
Washington state
- Spanish government fines filmmaker for movie poster showing “reckless driving” [Lowering the Bar] Siri, distracted driving, and police discretion [Balko]
- Parents taking care of their kids under Michigan program must pay $30/mo. to SEIU for representation [Joel Gehrke, Examiner]
- Stretching the Fifth: Joe Francis bad deposition behavior [Legal Ethics Forum]
- WaPo covers deep split on Consumer Product Safety Commission, left wants fifth seat filled ASAP;
- “Threat to Student Due Process Rights Dropped from Draft of Violence Against Women Act” [FIRE, background; Cathy Young/Reason]
- After $300K donation from Philadelphia trial lawyers, you may call him “Judge Wecht” [AP/WPVI]
- Court reverses $43M Madison County verdict against Ford [AP/Alton Telegraph, some background]
Tagged as:
CPSC,
Ford Motor,
labor unions,
Pennsylvania,
Spain,
traffic laws
- Sure, let’s subvert sound mortgage accounting in the name of energy efficiency. What could go wrong? [Mark Calabria, Kevin Funnell]
- California: fireworks shows are “development” and coastal commission can ban ‘em [Laer Pearce, Daily Caller]
- Trial lawyers’ lobbyist: I got Cuomo to bash Chevron in Ecuador case [John Schwartz, NYT]
- Politics of intimidation: “jobs bill” advocates occupy office of Sen. Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) [ABC News] Union protesters invade Sotheby’s during big auction [NYObserver] “Occupy Denver protesters try to storm conference of conservative bloggers” [Denver Post] “What’s the matter with Oakland?” [Megan McArdle] Post-’08 downturn, not wealth of the few, at root of economic woes [Steve Chapman] “Bohm-Bawerk forget to include [Ms. Katchpole] in his commentaries on sundry theories of interest.” [Tyler Cowen]
- New breakthroughs in abundant energy aren’t welcome to some [NYT "Room for Debate"] Is GOP wrong to make EPA an issue? [Michael Barone]
- After extracting $450,000 settlement, employee admits falsifying whistleblower evidence in oil filter antitrust case; class action suits continue [Bloomberg, Abby Schachter/NYPost via PoL]
- Least surprising Washington-DC-datelined story of year: “Medical malpractice reform efforts stalled” [Politico]
Tagged as:
Andrew Cuomo,
antitrust,
California,
Chevron,
environment,
labor unions,
mortgages,
whistleblowers
Brushing off First Amendment objections, a federal court has ruled that a union can be sued for “retaliation” after it defended itself in print against a lawsuit by two of its members. [Eugene Volokh]
Tagged as:
First Amendment,
labor unions,
workplace
“U Raise ‘Em/We Cage ‘Em” t-shirts from a California law enforcement union [Radley Balko] From the same source, “NYPD cops demand the right to be corrupt.” And on Friday at Cato at Liberty, I gave my take on Ohio’s vote today on whether to approve a package of laws reining in public employee unionism.
More on Ohio’s S.B. 5, including political post-mortem: Michael Barone, Mark Steyn, Ted Frank, Mickey Kaus, Mytheos Holt. Philip K. Howard points out in the WSJ that the LIRR’s disability epidemic is “hardly unique – 82% of senior California state troopers are ‘disabled’ in their last year before retirement” [WSJ; more on LIRR, Nicole Gelinas] Radley Balko has another revealing police union vignette, this time from an incident in which an off-duty cop led another cop on a high-speed chase. And from Brian Strow [Western Kentucky], “Stop, Drop, and Roll: The Privileged Economic Position of Firefighters” [Library of Economics and Liberty]
Tagged as:
labor unions,
NYC,
Ohio,
police,
public employment
- Ohio vote looms on Wisconsin-style public labor reform [NRO Corner, Columbus Dispatch, Atlantic Wire, Buckeye Institute "S.B. 5", Brian Bolduc/NRO]
- Florida lawmaker proposes leave for some employees with domestically abused pets [Eric Meyer]
- UK proposal: let employers have frank talks with underperforming workers without fear of liability [Telegraph]
- “Wisconsin legislation could restrict punitive damages for job bias” [AP]
- No, your mover can’t enter the building: a Chicago lawyer encounters union power [Howard Foster, Frum Forum] An insider’s game: “Two teachers union lobbyists teach for a day to qualify for hefty pensions” [Chicago Tribune]
- Alternatively, we might just want to go back to freedom of contract: “An employer’s bill of rights” [Hyman]
- Michael Fox on “Healthy Workplace Act” proposal creating rights to sue over on-job bullying [Jottings]
- Feds put employer use of “independent contractors” under microscope [Omega HR] FLSA risks to employer of using unpaid interns [SmartHR]
- A bit of health care deregulation from Obama [Tyler Cowen] Related on nurse practitioners: [Goodman]
Tagged as:
bullying,
Chicago,
labor unions,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin,
workplace
The suit was just a political stunt, writes Marc Hodak:
…Last week, the Delaware Chancery Court decided that in the absence of any substantiation whatsoever, and insisting on these things called facts, that they had to dismiss the case.
I only wish that the fiduciaries who brought this fact-challenged suit could be held accountable for the far more provable waste of their investors’ resources…
Tagged as:
labor unions,
securities litigation
- “EEOC showing late summer spike in discrimination suits” [NLJ]
- In new Lamons Gasket case, NLRB generously protects unions from many secret-ballot decertification elections [Hyman] Some employers rename quickie-elections proposal “ambush elections” [ShopFloor; see also Hannah Bowen, CRC, PDF] “NLRB’s Pro-Big Labor Ruling Trifecta is Bad News for the Economy” [Ivan Osorio, CEI] Did NLRB have legal authority to issue rule requiring employers to post union-rights posters on pain of criminal penalties? [Schaumber/NRO via Ted/PoL]
- Wage and hour law roundup: Law clerks fail in bid for overtime pay [Above the Law] “U.S. Open Umpires Sue for Overtime” [Fox Rothschild] Lawsuit challenges unpaid Hollywood internships [NYT]
- Public sector labor reform: Let the lawsuits begin! [Daniel DiSalvo, Public Sector Inc.]
- “Verizon Settles EEOC Disability Suit Based on No-Fault Attendance Policy” [Workplace Prof]
- Just can’t win dept.: after white firefighters extract large settlement from city of New Haven over reverse discrimination, Second Circuit rules that black firefighters can sue the city over the same “validated” test [WSJ, Schwartz]
- Screening job applicants through personality tests: when is it legal? [Hyman]
- Way to discourage employers from offering sabbaticals: have courts construe them as deferred vacation benefits [Cal Labor] Way to discourage volunteers [Cain, FindLaw]
- No, rules Judge Preska, the law doesn’t obligate employers to provide work/life balance [Hyman, Greenfield, PoL]
- Another purportedly disabled firefighter fit enough to run an Ironman event [WITI] “Can you pay me under the table? I would lose my disability” [Coyote]
Tagged as:
labor unions,
public employment,
wage and hour suits,
workplace
Early next year the Supreme Court will hear Knox v. SEIU Local 1000, an important case about union power and individual conscience. The Cato Institute has joined several other organizations in filing an amicus brief (PDF), as my colleague Ilya Shapiro explains here.
Tagged as:
Cato Institute,
labor unions,
Supreme Court
New Department of Labor regulations will require, on pain of serious criminal penalties, regular disclosures by lawyers, consultants, advisers, website developers, P.R. firms, pollsters and many others whose activities might persuade employees not to sign union cards. (Current regulations require disclosures only regarding consultants who actually meet with employees, as opposed to generating information that might reach them.) The result will be to give the Jimmy Hoffas of the world a road map to put legal pressure on (maybe even “take out“) a wide range of consultants and back-office employees in areas like safety, productivity management and general HR (say, employee-handbook writing), many of whose activities have predictable impact on bargainable issues and worker inclination to unionize. [Labor Union Report](& Legal Ethics Forum)
Tagged as:
labor unions,
workplace
- “Massage Parlor Mistrial Declared After Masseuse Recognizes Defense Lawyer as Client” [ABA Journal]
- Paying opposing expert to leave country? “Drug company lawyer taped trying to foil lawsuit” [AP]
- What anti-business crusades have in common with the War on Drugs [David Henderson] Some of those “oil and gas subsidies” aren’t [Coyote]
- Nocera on NLRB v. Boeing [NYT] A contrary view [Hirsch]
- Science finds no link between WTC dust, cancer? Then science will just have to give [Jeff Stier, Reason; but see later study on firefighters at the scene]
- Per Maureen Orth at Vanity Fair, the widow of designer Oleg Cassini has been in at least 15 lawsuits. Guess who’s named in number 16? [AW]
- Stop competing with us! Lawyers claim online-legal-form provider LegalZoom is engaged in unauthorized practice of law [WSJ, Dan Fisher, ABA Journal]
Tagged as:
junk science,
labor unions,
libel slander and defamation,
oil industry
Edward Glaeser isn’t prejudging the legalities of the NLRB’s complaint, but is put in mind of the “profound role that mobility has played in our country” with both enterprises and person moving restlessly in search of greater productive opportunity. He is left to hope “that the judicial process will affirm the right of companies, and people, to freely choose their locations. The U.S. economy — especially our challenged manufacturing sector — needs more, not less, freedom to adapt and innovate.” [Bloomberg]
Tagged as:
labor unions
- The appalling reign of California’s prison guards union [Tim Kowal, League of Ordinary Gentlemen via Tim Cavanaugh; Steven Malanga, City Journal; earlier]
- Defense side, including dozens of sued bloggers, begins to respond in “Rakofsky v. Internet” case [Turkewitz, Popehat, earlier]
- Point/counterpoint on class action arbitration clauses [Karlsgodt]
- Group plans to Twitter-fy the novel Ulysses via crowdsourcing in time for Bloomsday, but let’s hope nobody tells litigation-prone Joyce heir [Ulysses Meets Twitter 2011 via BoingBoing]
- Battle over reform of joint and several liability continues in Pennsylvania legislature [Wajert]
- From Miami, latest dramatic tale of cops vs. citizen video-taking [David Rittgers, Cato at Liberty] New Jersey bill would criminalize taking photos of kids in many circumstances [Nicole Ciandella, CEI, see also]
- Australia: “Man Gets Workers’ Comp for Injury Sustained When Punching Customer” [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
Australia,
California,
joint and several liability,
labor unions,
Pennsylvania,
police,
prisoners
Massachusetts: “Robert C. Cirba, a member of the Spencer-East Brookfield Regional School Committee and former candidate for state representative, has resigned from the committee after the state Department of Labor Relations found that comments he made on his blog interfered with teacher negotiations.” Cirba had written disrespectfully on his blog about the Spencer-East Brookfield Teachers Association and says the teacher’s union had threatened to sue him personally as well as pursue a legal complaint against the board over the writings. [Worcester Telegram]
Tagged as:
bloggers and the law,
labor unions,
libel slander and defamation,
Massachusetts,
schools
