Summarizes the provisions of those federal laws which prohibit employment discrimination: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), and the Equal Pay Act (1963).

It is no secret that since the 1980s, American workers have lost power vis-à-vis employers through the well-chronicled steep decline in private sector unionization. American workers have also lost power in other ways. Those alleging employment discrimination have fared increasingly poorly in the courts. In recent years, judges have dismissed scores of cases in which workers presented evidence that supervisors referred to them using racial or gender slurs. In one federal district court, judges dismissed more than 80 percent of the race discrimination cases filed over a year. And when juries return verdicts in favor of employees, judges often second guess those verdicts, finding ways to nullify the jury's verdict and rule in favor of the employer. Most Americans assume that that an employee alleging workplace discrimination faces the same legal system as other litigants. After all, we do not usually think that legal rules vary depending upon the type of claim brought. The employment law scholars Sandra A. Sperino and Suja A. Thomas show in Unequal that our assumptions are wrong. Over the course of the last half century, employment discrimination claims have come to operate in a fundamentally different legal system than other claims. It is in many respects a parallel universe, one in which the legal system systematically favors employers over employees. A host of procedural, evidentiary, and substantive mechanisms serve as barriers for employees, making it extremely difficult for them to access the courts. Moreover, these mechanisms make it fairly easy for judges to dismiss a case prior to trial. Americans are unaware of how the system operates partly because they think that race and gender discrimination are in the process of fading away. But such discrimination still happens in the workplace, and workers now have little recourse to fight it legally. By tracing the modern history of employment discrimination, Sperino and Thomas provide an authoritative account of how our legal system evolved into an institution that is inherently biased against workers making rights claims.

"The U.S. civil court system consists of three levels: 1) District Courts ("Trial Courts"), 2) Circuit Courts of Appeal ("appellate courts") and 3) the Supreme Court (see Figure 1.1). The United States has a total of 94 districts, representing distinct geographic regions (see Table 1.1). The number of districts varies by state. For instance, some states have only one district (e.g., Arizona, Colorado, Delaware), while others have multiple districts, such as California, Florida, and Michigan (e.g., Southern District of California, Central District of California)"--

An Introduction to Labor Law is a useful and course-tested primer that explains the basic principles of the federal law regulating the relationship of employers to labor unions. In this updated third edition, which features a new introduction, Michael Evan Gold discusses the law that applies to union organizing and representation elections, the duty to bargain in good faith, economic weapons such as strikes and lockouts, and the enforcement of collective bargaining agreements. Gold describes the structure and functions of the National Labor Relations Board and of the federal courts in regard to labor cases and also presents a number of legal issues presently in contention between labor and management.

Employment discrimination law is like a huge jigsaw puzzle--albeit one with many missing and mismatched pieces, which are constantly being changed. The purpose of Understanding Employment Discrimination Law is to clarify the differences, uncertainty, and complexity of employment discrimination law. The Second Edition deals with all the watershed Supreme Court decisions since 2002 and otherwise expands and updates the coverage of the prior edition.

A contextual, rigorous treatment of employment law, featuring a running case example to show exactly how the law works, and including extracts from key cases and source materials.

Gerry Handley faced years of blatant race-based harassment before he filed a complaint against his employer: racist jokes, signs reading “KKK” in his work area, and even questions from coworkers as to whether he had sex with his daughter as slaves supposedly did. He had an unusually strong case, with copious documentation and coworkers’ support, and he settled for $50,000, even winning back his job. But victory came at a high cost. Legal fees cut into Mr. Handley’s winnings, and tensions surrounding the lawsuit poisoned the workplace. A year later, he lost his job due to downsizing by his company. Mr. Handley exemplifies the burden plaintiffs bear in contemporary civil rights litigation. In the decades since the civil rights movement, we’ve made progress, but not nearly as much as it might seem. On the surface, America’s commitment to equal opportunity in the workplace has never been clearer. Virtually every company has antidiscrimination policies in place, and there are laws designed to protect these rights across a range of marginalized groups. But, as Ellen Berrey, Robert L. Nelson, and Laura Beth Nielsen compellingly show, this progressive vision of the law falls far short in practice. When aggrieved individuals turn to the law, the adversarial character of litigation imposes considerable personal and financial costs that make plaintiffs feel like they’ve lost regardless of the outcome of the case. Employer defendants also are dissatisfied with the system, often feeling “held up” by what they see as frivolous cases. And even when the case is resolved in the plaintiff’s favor, the conditions that gave rise to the lawsuit rarely change. In fact, the contemporary approach to workplace discrimination law perversely comes to reinforce the very hierarchies that antidiscrimination laws were created to redress. Based on rich interviews with plaintiffs, attorneys, and representatives of defendants and an original national dataset on case outcomes, Rights on Trial reveals the fundamental flaws of workplace discrimination law and offers practical recommendations for how we might better respond to persistent patterns of discrimination.

Employment Law, 4e provides a complete and accessible introduction to the subject, with a wealth of practical activities and a unique chapter on preparing and presenting a case.

An Introduction to Labor and Employment Discrimination Law is not an attempt to teach law to undergraduates, but rather to introduce them to legal reasoning. The principal means to this end are cases that present competing arguments (e.g., in majority and dissenting opinions) on major issues. Each case is preceded by the author's introduction and followed by the author's comments and questions. Chapter 1 focuses on labor law in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, i.e., before the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Chapter 2 surveys modern labor law under the Labor Act, covering such topics as representation and unfair labor practices. Chapter 3 is a brief introduction to the law of employment discrimination under the Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Americans With Disabilities Act. The book is accompanied by an appendix that contains a glossary of legal terms plus excerpts from the Constitution and relevant federal statutes.

This book uncovers legal shifts founded on misunderstandings about discrimination and describes how law and organizations can do better.