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Stone, Katherine V.W. --- "A Labor Law for the Digital Era: The Future of Labor and Employment Law in the United States" [2009] ELECD 426; in Dau-Schmidt, G. Kenneth; Harris, D. Seth; Lobel, Orly (eds), "Labor and Employment Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Labor and Employment Law and Economics

Editor(s): Dau-Schmidt, G. Kenneth; Harris, D. Seth; Lobel, Orly

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847207296

Section: Chapter 24

Section Title: A Labor Law for the Digital Era: The Future of Labor and Employment Law in the United States

Author(s): Stone, Katherine V.W.

Number of pages: 30

Extract:

24 A labor law for the digital era: the future
of labor and employment law in the
United States
Katherine V.W. Stone


There is a serious problem with the labor and employment law system in the
United States today. Unions have declined to the point where they represent
less than 8 per cent of the private sector workforce, employee wages have stag-
nated for more than three decades, employers are cutting back on workers'
health insurance and pensions, and there is a dramatic growth in the numbers
of the working poor. At the same time, there has been a rising chorus of com-
plaints from labor scholars that the labor law has become `ossified' (Estlund
2002), that the law is failing to offer meaningful worker protection (Summers
1993), that the courts and Labor Board have abandoned the `core values
of labor law' (Dannin and Bonier 2006), and that Congress has defunded
the labor protective agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB or the Board), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA), and the Hour and Wage Division that administers the Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) (Dannin 2004; Brudney et al. 1999; McGarity 1996).
Indeed, some have contended that over the past two decades, there has been
a passive repeal of the employment statute (Hiatt and Becker 2005; Brudney
1996; Dannin and Bonior 2006; Stone 1992).
There is a reason that the field of labor and employment law ­ both as an
academic subject and as an arena of ...