Despite the important legislative gains for workers’ pay, work conditions, and well-being, labor unions membership and influence began to ___ in the years following the end of WWII. (At the height of labor unions, around 33% of private-sector workers in the United States had belonged to labor unions. In 2010, that number dropped to 7%.)
Employer background checks can give rise to
___ problems in employment
where minority populations are arrested at a higher rate than majority populations for low-level offenses that rest primarily on a police officer’s discretion to arrest for behavior that poses little or no harm to the community, such as loitering, disorderly conduct, trespassing arrests.
Similar to a wrongful discharge claim, a retaliatory demotion claim is
a claim that one has suffered a reduction in rank, salary, or ___ title as a punishment for a lawful action.
Employers whose employees misappropriate trade secrets for their own use or for the benefit of a new employer are entitled to bring a tort claim to obtain an injunction (court order) putting a stop to such illegal behavior, and can ___ for any monetary damages suffered as a result of the theft.
The ___ Labor Organization (ILO) is the agency of the United Nations that develops uniform labor and employment standards internationally, encourages member nations to adopt those universal standards, and monitors compliance with those standards by those nations that have adopted them.
The idea espoused by advocates of workers’ rights and environmental issues that corporations should behave as good global citizens: that multinational corporations have the ethical obligation to behave in fair and humane ways toward their workers, wherever they are located, and to pursue “green” policies and practices to protect the environments in which they operate, wherever they are, is called “___ corporate responsibility.”
The U.S. has ratified 14 of 189 ILO Conventions, including two of the “fundamental” conventions, or ILO's ___ labor standards: No. 105 on the Abolition of Forced Labor and No. 182 on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor.
The ___ Act amended the Security Exchange Act and several other statutes to include whistleblower protection of employees who report improper conduct concerning securities fraud and corruption by corporate officials.
Shortly after F.D.R.’s announcement proposing increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, the Court issued a pro-worker decision in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), upholding a Washington state law ___ wages and working conditions for women and children that was similar to a NY law the Court had recently overturned. That decision was followed by numerous other decisions upholding pro-worker federal and state law statutes.
In 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett (2009) (5-4) the Supreme Court extended Gilmer’s ruling, holding that a provision in a collective bargaining agreement (that the union negotiated, not the individual employee) that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate ADEA claims is ___ as a matter of federal law.
The tort of defamation is a false, harmful statement communicated __ a third person.
In Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corporation (1991) (7-2) the Supreme Court held that an employee’s right to litigate a claim that their employer discriminated against them based on their age could be subjected to compulsory arbitration (rather than a right to __ to court) based on an employment contract they signed.
Under the public policy exception to employment-at-will, termination is illegal if a clear and significant mandate of law (statutory or common) is damaged if the firing is permitted to stand ___.
Circumstances that could create an employer's ___ of alcohol or drug use justifying drug testing invasion of privacy include:
observed alcohol or drug abuse during work hours on company premises,
apparent physical state of impairment,
incoherent mental state,
marked changes in personal behavior that are otherwise unexplainable,
deteriorating work performance that is not attributable to other factors,
accidents or other actions that provide reasonable cause to believe the employee may be under the influence at work.
A private or civil wrong or injury, caused by one party to another, which can arise from intentional conduct, or from negligent conduct, is called a ___. The
most common type of ___ is a personal injury.
Although an employer may be forced into compulsory arbitration (losing the right to pursue a ___ resolution of a claim of discrimination) based on an employment contract they signed or a collective bargaining agreement their union signed, an employee can not be barred from filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), who can then bring a lawsuit in ___ against the employer if warranted.
Although the common-law presumption of at-will employment can be overcome by an express contract or by an implied contract, for example--a stated policy in an employee handbook,
courts remain reluctant to infer terms and conditions of employment when the employer has not expressly granted a right to an employee.
Most employee handbooks are written now with careful caveats such as—”this handbook does not create a contract and the employer may unilaterally alter ___ stated policies at its discretion and at ___ time.”
The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) arises from
purposely outrageous conduct that causes emotional harm. The
elements of a prima facie case of intentional infliction of emotional distress include:
extreme and outrageous conduct by the defendant;
the defendant’s intention of causing, or reckless disregard of the likelihood of causing, emotional distress;
the plaintiff’s suffering of severe emotional distress; and
the distress was a direct result of the defendant’s extreme and outrageous conduct.
A(n) ___ employment contract is one in which the terms are explicitly stated, usually in writing but perhaps only verbally, and often in great detail.
Tortious ___ with contract (sometimes called tortious ___ with a prospective economic advantage) is a claim against a third party who allegedly causes the plaintiff to be fired or interferes with their ability to get a job.
The third party must interfere for an improper reason, such as animosity toward the plaintiff, and not for a valid business reason, in order to be held responsible for this tort.
In many states, proving an invasion of privacy/intrusion upon ___ claim requires proving 1) “an intentional substantial intrusion” on the employees’ privacy, that 2) would be “highly offensive” to a reasonable person. (Discussing a scenario similar to one or more of the cases we discussed in class on this issue would be a good essay question.)
In the context of international employment law, “___ are the uniform codes of procedure and standards of conduct that the ILO seeks to promulgate and enforce in order to establish international standards for the fair treatment of workers among all member nations of the United Nations.”
Some of the common ways in which employers (both public and private) intrude upon their employees’ ___ include:
surveillance and eavesdropping,
monitoring and reviewing computer information and use,
requests for information from third parties,
requests for medical information, and
conducting internal investigations.
Where there is an ample labor pool, due to an imbalance in resources, the balance of power in the employer/employee relationship in its natural state is on the ___ of the employer.
The ___ Act (2010), following 2008-10 Great Recession, often blamed on domino effect of bad mortgage lending practices, Congress reinstated some regulatory restrictions on the U.S. financial industry that had been considered antiquated in the 1990s, and added additional whistleblower provisions that apply to employees in the realm of banking and investments.
HIPAA, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1998), which prevents unauthorized use or disclosure of health and medical information, can apply to an ___ where that ___ sponsors and administers an ___ health insurance plan and receives info from covered health care providers in order to administer the health insurance plan. (What HIPAA requires a covered ___ to do and not do would be a good essay question.)