Chapter 1: First the Forest, then the Trees: An Overview of Employment and Labor Law

1. � 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use. 1 - 1 Chapter 1: First the Forest, then the Trees: An Overview of Employmentand Labor Law Employment & Labor Law 7th Edition Cihon & Castagnera

2. � 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use. 1 - 2 Employment-at-Will and Common Law Industrial Revolution gives rise to the employment-at-will doctrine (19th century) Employment-at-Will: Both the employee and the employer are free to unilaterally terminate the relationship at any time and for any legally permissible reason, or for no reason at all Common Law: Judge-made law as opposed to statutes and ordinances enacted by legislative bodies

3. � 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use. 1 - 3 Rise of Modern Unions Unions� Progress Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that unionized workers could only be indicted if either their means or their ends were illegal (1842) Employers Liability Act (1908) and the Railway Labor Act (1926) allowed for alternative methods of dispute resolution, first in the railroad, and later in the airline industry

4. � 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use. 1 - 4 The New Deal The New Deal resulted in several major federal employment and labor laws, including The Social Security Act (1935): provides modest pensions to retired workers The National Labor Relations Act (1935): sets the ground rules for the give and take between labor unions and corporate managers The Walsh-Healy Act (1936): first statute to set the terms and conditions of employment to be provided by government contractors The Merchant Marine (Jones) Act (1936): provides remedies for injured sailors The Fair Labor Standards Act (1938): sets minimum wages, mandates overtime pay, and regulates child labor

5. � 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use. 1 - 5 Early Challenges Justices repeatedly refused to enforce New Deal legislation, consistently declaring the new laws unconstitutional West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish Court majority conceded that the legislature had the right to consider that its minimum wage requirements would be an important component of its policy of protecting workers The opinion pointed to the prevalence of similar laws in a growing number of states as evidence of a broadening national consensus that sweatshops were evil and these kinds of laws significantly contributed to their eradication

6. � 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use. 1 - 6 History of Labor Disputes