Overlawyered » public employment http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:22:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Tales from NYC’s “rubber room” http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/tales-from-nycs-rubber-room/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/tales-from-nycs-rubber-room/#comments Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:39:34 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=27226 The New York Post checks on on some unfireable teachers.

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/tales-from-nycs-rubber-room/feed/ 2 Great moments in public sector arbitration http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/great-moments-in-public-sector-arbitration/ http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/great-moments-in-public-sector-arbitration/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:11:50 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26600 “A police lieutenant, fired for covering up a hit and run crash involving a fellow officer [she] was involved in a relationship with, has been reinstated following an arbitration decision that chastised the city’s Police Commission.” Christine Burns also got six months back pay. The arbitrator found that Burns’s boyfriend had been treated leniently, drawing only a one-year unpaid suspension despite serious misconduct, which in turn deprived her of her right to be treated “evenhandedly and without discrimination.” [Connecticut Post]

And while we’re at it: Police union defends Denver cop fired for driving drunk at 143 mph [Tina Korbe, Hot Air; The Truth About Cars]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2012/01/great-moments-in-public-sector-arbitration/feed/ 6 Labor law roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/labor-law-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/labor-law-roundup-2/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:26:22 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26435
  • But don’t call it quotas: “New Proposal May Force Federal Contractors to Hire More People with Disabilities” [Diversity Journal]
  • Wow: SEIU local advertises job described as “Train/lead members in … occupying state buildings and banks” [Instapundit]
  • $174K/year annual pension, collected for several decades? “Public retirement ages come under greater scrutiny” [AP] “Report makes ‘progressive’ pension-reform case” [Steven Greenhut, Public Sector Inc.] “Retired Cops and Firefighters in RI Town Accept Pension Cuts in Bankruptcy Deal” [Debra Cassens Weiss/ABA Journal, earlier] New York officials move to cut off public access to information about who’s getting what [NY Post]
  • In end run around Congress: “Obama instating labor rules for home-care aides” [LAT]
  • Artificial “take home pay” rule helped some highly paid Connecticut public workers qualify for emergency food stamps [Hartford Courant, more]
  • Lawyers, business groups alarmed at Department of Labor’s proposed “labor persuader” regulations [ABA Journal, earlier]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/labor-law-roundup-2/feed/ 1     December 13 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/december-13-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/december-13-roundup-2/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:43:41 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26078
  • “The real cost of patent trolls” [Brad Feld, PoL on BU study] Survey finds patent litigation booming [Corporate Counsel, Reynolds Holding/Reuters] Company claiming patent on wi-fi-in-stores unlikely to sue retail customers “at this stage” [Patent Examiner] Retrospective on crustless-sandwich case [Peter Smith/Good, earlier]
  • Louisiana federal court holds severe obesity to be disability under ADA [Sam Bagenstos, related]
  • Florida: many cops remain on job despite evidence linking them to crimes [Balko on Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigation]
  • “FDA Regulation Could Doom Cigar Shops” [Jacob Sullum]
  • Ted Frank vs. Brian Fitzpatrick on class action fees [PoL, David Lat on Federalist Society panel]
  • Orange County keeps mum about partnerships it’s entered with plaintiff’s attorneys Robinson, Calcagnie and Thomas Girardi [Kim Stone, Fox & Hounds] Maybe like “private attorney generals”? Fannie/Freddie genre of government-sponsored enterprises called “monstrous moral hybrids” [Mark Calabria, Cato]
  • Posner: lawyers appeared more likely to run junk-fax suit for own interests than clients’ [Beck, Trask (Creative Montessori Learning Centers v. Ashford Gear LLC)]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/december-13-roundup-2/feed/ 2     Illinois’ fragile prison guards http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/illinois-fragile-prison-guards/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/illinois-fragile-prison-guards/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:22:54 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26160 The Associated Press and Belleville News-Democrat investigate some curious clusters of workers’-comp claims among downstate correctional officers and other public employees.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/illinois-fragile-prison-guards/feed/ 0     “Battleground Ohio: John Kasich’s Collective Bargaining Reform Goes Down” http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/battleground-ohio-john-kasich%e2%80%99s-collective-bargaining-reform-goes-down/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/battleground-ohio-john-kasich%e2%80%99s-collective-bargaining-reform-goes-down/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:48:18 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26145 At Capital Research Center, James Antle has a post-mortem on the defeat of Ohio Republicans’ ambitious attempt to turn around the public sector employment climate.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/battleground-ohio-john-kasich%e2%80%99s-collective-bargaining-reform-goes-down/feed/ 0     SEIU to Washington legislators: raise taxes or we’ll keep suing you http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/seiu-to-washington-legislators-raise-taxes-or-well-keep-suing-you/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/seiu-to-washington-legislators-raise-taxes-or-well-keep-suing-you/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:02:29 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26154 “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).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/seiu-to-washington-legislators-raise-taxes-or-well-keep-suing-you/feed/ 9     Great moments in California public employee tenure http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/great-moments-in-california-public-employee-tenure/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/great-moments-in-california-public-employee-tenure/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:20:38 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=26011 California public employees can appeal to the little-known Personnel Board to challenge terminations. Among those ordered reinstated: “A nurse’s aide accused of stealing money from an elderly patient and a hospital staffer who allegedly beat a disabled patient with a shoe.” Replete with examples, this is the sort of investigative piece that ought to make a difference, though alas it probably won’t [Los Angeles Times]

    More: At The American, Lee Ohanian has a fact-packed overview of “America’s public sector union dilemma.” Fred Siegel is interviewed by Matthew Kaminski on New York City and public sector unions as the “New Tammany Hall” [WSJ] SEC chief Mary Schapiro says firing failed employees would “harm” the agency [Mark Calabria, Cato]. And Jonah Goldberg discovers that, especially in California, there really is something to this talk of a “prison-industrial complex.”

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/12/great-moments-in-california-public-employee-tenure/feed/ 0     Great moments in public sector unionism http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/great-moments-in-public-sector-unionism-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/great-moments-in-public-sector-unionism-2/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:24:57 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25545 “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]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/great-moments-in-public-sector-unionism-2/feed/ 2     L.I.R.R. disability scandal http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/l-i-r-r-disability-scandal/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/l-i-r-r-disability-scandal/#comments Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:49:56 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25323 The abuse of disability claims by employees of the Long Island Rail Road, exposed by the New York Times’s Walt Bogdanich three years ago and noted in several items here at the time, has at last eventuated in indictments of eleven defendants, including doctors and “facilitators.” According to prosecutors, the bogus benefit claims could have exceeded $1 billion if paid out to completion. “The Times articles reported that virtually every career employee of the railroad was applying for and receiving disability payments, giving the Long Island Rail Road a disability rate three to four times that of the average railroad.” [NYT, NRO "Corner"]

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