Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Labor and employment roundup

  • Politically effective or not, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s debate attack on Mike Bloomberg over non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) was simplistic, and that’s putting it diplomatically [Robin Shea]
  • West Coast longshore union braces for bankruptcy [Richard Read, Los Angeles Times]
  • An issue to watch carefully: most Democratic White House contenders support labor law changes to introduce “sectoral bargaining,” which ropes employers into all-for-one industry-wide negotiations like it or not [Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs, On Labor, approving of this idea]
  • “Arbitration in the MeToo Era,” Federalist Society panel discussion with Paul Clement, Alexander Colvin, Deepak Gupta, Andrew Pincus, moderated by Hon. Joan Larsen;
  • Chilling effect: employers fear being hit with unfair labor practices claims if they say things that 1) are true and 2) would be helpful for workers to know [Cato Daily Podcast with Ken Girardin and Caleb Brown]
  • “Chipotle Wants Sick Employees to Verify with a Nurse. This is a Very Pro-Employee Move.” [Suzanne Lucas, Inc.]

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3 Comments

  • NDAs obviously help employees who probably don’t want their name spilled out all over the place as they continue their careers. Particularly if there are embarrassing personal details.

    • By SPO

  • The Chipotle story gave me a laugh. About 18 years ago the Company that I worked for had a retirement dinner for one of their engineers. There was a Hepatitis outbreak at the restaurant and we lost most of the Engineering Department for several weeks. I kept our projects on time and budget by working with my Engineer over the phone and e-mail. When it got straightened out the Company sent me to school to get my Engineering degree.

  • Robin Shea is partly wrong. If the alleged perpetrator was Bloomberg, the NDAs are fair game. Otherwise, Bloomberg should have stood his ground.

    Also, the intro is flimsy. It describes the NDA as being done to make frivolous law suits go away. It ignores that the NDA may be a way to settle law suits that are slam dunks for the complainant.

    • By Allan