Prolabor critics often question the effectiveness of the National Labor Relations Board. Some go so far as to call the Board labor's enemy number one. In a daring book that is sure to be controversial, Ellen Dannin argues that the blame actually lies with judicial decisions that have radically "rewritten" the National Labor Relations Act. But rather than simply bemoan this problem, Dannin offers concrete solutions for change. Dannin calls for labor to borrow from the strategy mapped out by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the early 1930s to eradicate legalized racial discrimination. This book lays out a long-term litigation strategy designed to overturn the cases that have undermined the NLRA and frustrated its policies. As with the NAACP, this strategy must take place in a context of activism to promote the NLRA policies of social and industrial democracy, solidarity, justice, and worker empowerment. Dannin contends that only by promoting these core purposes of the NLRA can unions survive—and even thrive.

Over the last fifty years in the United States, unions have been in deep decline, while income and wealth inequality have grown. In this timely work, editors Richard Bales and Charlotte Garden - with a roster of thirty-five leading labor scholars - analyze these trends and show how they are linked. Designed to appeal to those being introduced to the field as well as experts seeking new insights, this book demonstrates how federal labor law is failing today's workers and disempowering unions; how union jobs pay better than nonunion jobs and help to increase the wages of even nonunion workers; and how, when union jobs vanish, the wage premium also vanishes. At the same time, the book offers a range of solutions, from the radical, such as a complete overhaul of federal labor law, to the incremental, including reforms that could be undertaken by federal agencies on their own.

When Congress debated the NLRA in 1935, it was acutely aware of the problem of judicial amendments of workplace laws, because it had just been through decades of re-legislating employee rights that judges had repeatedly destroyed under the guise of interpretation. Despite its concerns, experience has shown that Congress was unable to draft the NLRA in a way that would allow it to withstand the process of judicial amendment. Even more recent experience shows that this process of judicial amendment continues to undermine workplace laws. Amendment by judicial interpretation gutted the Americans with Disabilities Act and overrode the clear intent of Congress, leading to the recent passage of the Americans with Disabilities Restoration Act. In 1991, Title VII was amended to reverse Supreme Court decisions that eviscerated our most important anti-discrimination law. While amendments to restore a law to its original purpose are sometimes possible, they come at a high cost. The ADA was successfully amended only because of the personal stake and strong support of Representative F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), one of the ADA's original authors. Unions have spent years lobbying for the enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that is necessitated because of judicial amendments. EFCA and the the ADA Restoration Act demonstrate that such amendments require costly lobbying and powerful supporters. Most judicially amended laws do not have sufficiently powerful partisans and thus linger in their weakened state. Thus, the enervated Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) fail to achieve their purposes but have no partisans with the power and commitment to amend them to restore them to their original purpose. Far better than pursuing this cycle of legislation, judicial rewriting of legislation, and potential restoration by re-legislation would be to stop the process of judicial amendments and to use litigation to reverse those that now exist. The NAACP legal Defense Fund litigation strategy provides evidence that such a process can be successful and furnished the general outlines for how such a strategy can be constructed. Among the lessons are that change cannot come from one person's advocating the need for such a strategy or identifying problems with the way judges decide NLRB cases. Real change requires a group of knowledgeable, thoughtful, and creative people to formulate the outlines of that strategy and adapt it to meet changed circumstances. To be most effective, such a strategy would be initiated by the NLRB General Counsel; however, Taking Back the Workers' Law - How to Fight the Assault on Labor Rights (2006 Cornell) provides guidance to litigants in pursuing that strategy on their own. This article briefly reviews ideas relevant to the construction of a litigation strategy before identifying examples of NLRA issues that should among those first addressed. Finally, the article then discusses ways to build on those ideas in order to strengthen and enforce the rights set out in the NLRA.

Beginning with background perspective on the Fair Labor Standards Act--and ending with specific litigation issues & strategies--here is your one-source reference to the FLSA & its complex legal applications in today's workplace. A team of eminent specialists from the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law's Federal Labor Standards Legislation Committee gives you insights & tactics including: . history & coverage of the FLSA . what constitutes a violation of the Act . exemptions to the law--including white-collar jobs & other statutory exemptions . how to determine compensable hours, minimum wage, & overtime compensation . special issues for federal & state workers . proper recordkeeping procedures . consequences for retaliation by employers . enforcement of the law--and remedies for violations . emerging & volatile topics including child labor, homework, hot goods violations, & much more . plus specific litigation strategies to meet nearly any challenge you may face in handling cases affected by the FLSA.

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