Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
Solution and Answer Guide
CIHON AND CASTAGNERA, EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR LAW, 11TH EDITION , ©2027,
9798214055909; C HAPTER 1: FIRST THE FOREST, THEN THE TREES: AN OVERVIEW OF EMPLOYMENT
AND LABOR LAW
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Answers to End-of-Chapter Problems..........................................................................1
ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER PROBLEMS
1. Question: Can you think of any public policy reasons why the courts developed the concept of
employment-at-will in 19th-century America? In thinking about this question, consider that the U.S.
Congress made huge land grants to companies willing to undertake the building of the nation’s railroads.
Can you understand how both employment-at-will and public financial support of private enterprise might
rise from the same underlying policy considerations?
Answer: Employment-at-will was devised by American judges in the 19th century, a time when the
young nation was pushing West and expanding its industrial base. The public policy inherent in
employment at will is the same policy manifested in the enormous land grants given to railroad companies
to facilitate their rights of way. The purpose of both was to make it easier and more economical for free
enterprise to expand and prosper. By depriving workers of job security, and therefore bargaining leverage,
wages were depressed and employers given the maximum flexibility and power in dealing with their
workforces. Declaring unions to be illegal combinations and conspiracies, another feature of the American
common law during much of the 19th century reflected the same public-policy considerations.
2. Question: How did new technologies combine with the arrival of millions of unskilled immigrants from
Ireland, and later southern and eastern Europe, to impact the relative bargaining power of capitalists and
workers in 19th-century America? What do you think were some reasons why the courts at first tended to
support capital against labor? Why do you think that view gradually changed?
Answer: The Industrial Revolution created a demand for labor. Workers banded together into labor
unions in order to gain some power. This shifted some power back to the workers. Courts initially resisted
these unions, considering them to be similar to criminal conspiracies, based on Old English law that made it
a crime for a worker to either leave a job in search of higher pay or to demand higher pay. However, the
court’s view gradually changed as judges applied enlightened logic to analyze cases under the U.S.
Constitution. They came to view that organizing the union, in and of itself, was not a crime, and in fact was
protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution right of assembly provision. If the members
of the organization did not engage in illegal activity then they were free to pursue their goals, even if
reaching their goals (of higher wages, for example) would have the effect of diminishing the employer’s
profits.
3. Question: Imagine that the Supreme Court during the 1930s had staunchly refused to change its view and
continued to declare almost all New Deal labor and employment laws to be unconstitutional, as the Court
did at first. What do you think might have been some of the results of such intransigence on the Court’s
part?
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 1
website, in whole or in part.
,Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
Answer: FDR had threatened to seek authorization from the Democratic Congress to appoint additional
Justices to the Supreme Court, thereby altering the majority in favor of New Deal legislation. Previously,
the Court, usually by narrow margins such as 5–4 had declared a number of key statutes, such as the
National Recovery Act, to be unconstitutional. Roosevelt's frustration led to his so-called “Court packing”
plan. The plan resulted in an outcry from Republicans and even some Democrats and it’s unclear whether,
if push came to shove, would have given him the power to pack the Court. But the threat was sufficient to
induce at least one Justice to change sides . . . the so-called “switch in time that saved the nine,” according
to one pundit.
4. Question: Granting that organized labor in the past was sometimes guilty of abusing its power, and that
when it was on top, some unions were aligned at times with the Mafia or with the American Communist
Party, on balance, do you think that labor unions have been a blessing or a curse to American society?
What about today, in 2026?
Answer: The instructor might present the following pros and cons for students’ consideration and debate:
PROS:
Better wages, benefits, and employment conditions for workers
Protection against unjust dismissal (no more employment-at-will for them)
Perhaps safer work places
CONS:
Employers lose their ability to be agile entrepreneurs due to numerous work rules.
Unions are often corrupt. Some have been associated with organized crime.
5. Question: Explain the Supreme Court’s attempts in the Alexander and Epic Systems cases to balance
private arbitration with public legal remedies, such as government agency and court cases. Do you think the
Court has struck the right balance? How did the End Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual
Harassment Act affect this balance? Should the EFAH be extended to all employment discrimination
claims?
Answer: In 1974, the Alexander Court determined that the right to be protected against illegal
discrimination is a protected statutory right, as is the right to have the government agency (the EEOC)
investigate the claim. Therefore, the union cannot waive an employee’s right to invoke the protection of the
law by binding the employee to a grievance or arbitration clause contained in a collective bargaining
agreement, in the case of a dispute arising under statutory law. The issue of mandatory grievance and
arbitration clauses arose again in 1991. In this case, Gilmer had signed the agreement to arbitrate, himself.
The waiver was not part of a collective bargaining agreement outside his control. Additionally, the Gilmer
Court noted that even though Gilmer was required to arbitrate the dispute, he was still allowed to request
that the EEOC investigate his claim. Therefore, his situation was different than Alexander’s.
6. Question: One reason that U.S. workers, especially in the manufacturing sector, have a hard time
competing with competitors in China, Southeast Asia, and India is wage differentials. And one reason
(though not the only one) that labor costs are so much lower in some of America’s major competitors, such
as Japan and Korea, is that the governments of these countries provide substantial pensions for workers, so
that the employers do not need to bear this expense. While providing such a pension (which would have to
be significantly larger than current Social Security retirement benefits) would not address wage
differentials between the U.S. and its many competitors in Asia and Latin America, this would help level
the playing field with others, such as Japan, Korea, and perhaps some of the European Union nations.
Should the U.S. Congress consider enacting such an expanded federal pension benefit? What are the pros
and cons? Alternatively, should Uncle Sam require U.S. employers to establish employee pension plans?
What are the pros and cons of doing this?
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 2
website, in whole or in part.
,Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
Answer: The reelection of President Obama for a second term in 2012, and the Democrats’ retention of a
majority in the Senate mean that major cuts in so-called “entitlement” programs, notably Social Security
and Medicare/Medicaid are unlikely. On the other hand, the size of the U.S. deficit and the tenaciously
sluggish economy, coming ever so slowly back from the Great Recession, make a significant enhancement
of Social Security benefits a virtual impossibility. At the same time, it seems highly unlikely that the GOP-
dominated House of Representatives is going to go along with mandatory pensions funded by employers.
To the contrary, the fiscal crises in many states, where defined-benefit plans have prevailed for public
employees, demonstrate that such plans are relics of a bygone era. The dramatic decline of unions in the
private sector means that few American workers have the leverage to force companies to dramatically
enhance, or to create where absent now, pension plans. Nor can we assume that workers, given the chance,
would necessarily agree to lower wages in return for pension plans.
7. Question: In Janus v. AFSCME, 585 U.S. 878 (2018), the U.S. Supreme Court held that public employee
unions could not constitutionally require employees in the bargaining unit to pay service fees if they chose
not to join the union and objected to such payments. This meant that public-sector unions had to represent
bargaining units that included free-riders. Public-employee union membership slipped to a new low of 36
percent by 2025, mostly due to the Janus decision. Putting aside partisan politics, what are the pros and
cons of attempts by assorted state legislatures and the Supreme Court to eliminate public employees’
collective bargaining rights and weaken or decertify their labor unions? Consider that public employees
already enjoy due process protections under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which do not
apply to private-sector employees.
Answer: One might argue that eliminating collective bargaining rights is a case of “throwing out the baby
with the bath water.” By this we mean that the real problem for most states is that unionized public
employees have defined-benefit pension plans, as well as guaranteed health care at retirement, following
20- to 30-year careers. These are Cadillac plans, which in many instances have been chronically
underfunded by the state legislatures for decades. Since taking these benefits away from employees who
already are vested is usually impossible, one idea behind elimination of bargaining rights is to make sure
future generations of public workers are not eligible for the same. Collective bargaining and union
representation usually also mean that employees are protected from arbitrary discipline. One could argue
that public employees are less in need of such protection, since public employers are restrained by the 14th
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which imposes on “state actors” most of the Bill of Rights, including
free speech, due process of law, and search-and-seizure prohibitions. The reasoning goes that for this
reason public workers should feel sufficiently secure from employer abuses that unions typically oppose in
the private sector.
8. Question: Explain the roles that the courts play in creating and/or implementing labor and employment
law. Do any of the roles that you can identify amount to unreasonable intrusions into the roles of Congress
and the state legislatures? Private enterprise?
Answer: American courts create common (judge made) law. The doctrine of employment at will was a
creation of the common law during the 19th century, when America was expanding west and developing
into a major industrial power. Later, American courts began fashioning exceptions to the pure doctrine of
at-will employment, most notably the public-policy exception. The courts also developed the related torts
of defamation, invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional harm, etc. Additionally, the courts interpret the
statutory law, including the anti-discrimination laws and major labor and wage & hour laws. With regard to
federal law, the US Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the law means. But we have seen—as, for
example, with the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act in 2008—that Congress is ready, willing
and able to overrule the Supreme Court, when the legislators feel that the high court has misinterpreted the
law and/or misapprehended Congressional intent. Private enterprise for its part often complains that the
courts accord workers too many rights. One might retort that the rise of individual employee rights, such as
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 3
website, in whole or in part.
, Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
the public policy exception to at will employ, has been in inverse proportion to the decline of labor unions
over the past 60 years.
9. Question: Having considered and, hopefully, discussed the ethical dilemma posed by the use (some
would say abuse) of executive orders by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden to achieve policy goals in
the face of congressional roadblocks, do you feel that the separation of powers, so carefully crafted by the
nation’s founders in the U.S. Constitution, has become too much an impediment to progress in the “Flat
Earth” environment in which America (and American workers) must compete? If so, how would you
amend the Constitution to deal with this governmental gridlock?
Answer: The instructor will need to lead this debate, should the instructor choose to use this problem.
The instructor may direct student to conduct research, including these web addresses:
https://search.whitehouse.gov/search?query=executive+order&op=Search&affiliate=wh
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/obama-subjects.html
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php
Some questions the instructor might throw out for consideration and debate include:
Republicans have compared President Obama’s ample use of executive orders to that of a
monarchy. Do you think this comparison holds water? What checks and balances are in place to
avoid “executive tyranny”? Do you think some of those checks and balances be eliminated to
make the pathway clearer for new laws?
How have President Obama’s executive orders helped close the wage gap for women and minority
workers?
10. Question: Along these same lines, do you believe, as do many conservatives, that labor unions have
outlived their usefulness in our “Flat Earth” economic environment? Or, alternatively, do you believe they
still play an important role in the American democracy? If so, what would you do to encourage more
American workers to rally to organized labor?
Answer: The TV pundit Bill Maher occasionally ruminates about why Americans, whose high-paying
industrial jobs have migrated overseas, and who are left working low-wage service jobs with few benefits,
are not flocking to labor unions. His concern, first of all, is overstated. In fact the Service Employees
International Union and some other labor organizations are enjoying increased success in attracting workers
on the lower rungs of the American economy. Some experts attribute the fact that more workers don’t
unionize to flaws in the National Labor Relations Act, which supposedly creates a level playing field but
actually favors employers in many ways, such as the slowness of its procedures and its limited remedies.
The Obama NLRB has tried to remedy the first of these perceived shortcomings by announcing regulations
in 2015 for so “snap elections” with limited opportunity for employers to prevent recognition by
committing unfair labor practices. It is difficult for unions to raise wages when jobs can be readily shipped
overseas. To counter this problem, some international labor unions have been organizing globally and/or
leveraging their strength in heavily unionized nations, such as Germany, to force multi-national firms to
recognize them in the U.S. and elsewhere.
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 4
website, in whole or in part.
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
Solution and Answer Guide
CIHON AND CASTAGNERA, EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR LAW, 11TH EDITION , ©2027,
9798214055909; C HAPTER 1: FIRST THE FOREST, THEN THE TREES: AN OVERVIEW OF EMPLOYMENT
AND LABOR LAW
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Answers to End-of-Chapter Problems..........................................................................1
ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER PROBLEMS
1. Question: Can you think of any public policy reasons why the courts developed the concept of
employment-at-will in 19th-century America? In thinking about this question, consider that the U.S.
Congress made huge land grants to companies willing to undertake the building of the nation’s railroads.
Can you understand how both employment-at-will and public financial support of private enterprise might
rise from the same underlying policy considerations?
Answer: Employment-at-will was devised by American judges in the 19th century, a time when the
young nation was pushing West and expanding its industrial base. The public policy inherent in
employment at will is the same policy manifested in the enormous land grants given to railroad companies
to facilitate their rights of way. The purpose of both was to make it easier and more economical for free
enterprise to expand and prosper. By depriving workers of job security, and therefore bargaining leverage,
wages were depressed and employers given the maximum flexibility and power in dealing with their
workforces. Declaring unions to be illegal combinations and conspiracies, another feature of the American
common law during much of the 19th century reflected the same public-policy considerations.
2. Question: How did new technologies combine with the arrival of millions of unskilled immigrants from
Ireland, and later southern and eastern Europe, to impact the relative bargaining power of capitalists and
workers in 19th-century America? What do you think were some reasons why the courts at first tended to
support capital against labor? Why do you think that view gradually changed?
Answer: The Industrial Revolution created a demand for labor. Workers banded together into labor
unions in order to gain some power. This shifted some power back to the workers. Courts initially resisted
these unions, considering them to be similar to criminal conspiracies, based on Old English law that made it
a crime for a worker to either leave a job in search of higher pay or to demand higher pay. However, the
court’s view gradually changed as judges applied enlightened logic to analyze cases under the U.S.
Constitution. They came to view that organizing the union, in and of itself, was not a crime, and in fact was
protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution right of assembly provision. If the members
of the organization did not engage in illegal activity then they were free to pursue their goals, even if
reaching their goals (of higher wages, for example) would have the effect of diminishing the employer’s
profits.
3. Question: Imagine that the Supreme Court during the 1930s had staunchly refused to change its view and
continued to declare almost all New Deal labor and employment laws to be unconstitutional, as the Court
did at first. What do you think might have been some of the results of such intransigence on the Court’s
part?
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 1
website, in whole or in part.
,Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
Answer: FDR had threatened to seek authorization from the Democratic Congress to appoint additional
Justices to the Supreme Court, thereby altering the majority in favor of New Deal legislation. Previously,
the Court, usually by narrow margins such as 5–4 had declared a number of key statutes, such as the
National Recovery Act, to be unconstitutional. Roosevelt's frustration led to his so-called “Court packing”
plan. The plan resulted in an outcry from Republicans and even some Democrats and it’s unclear whether,
if push came to shove, would have given him the power to pack the Court. But the threat was sufficient to
induce at least one Justice to change sides . . . the so-called “switch in time that saved the nine,” according
to one pundit.
4. Question: Granting that organized labor in the past was sometimes guilty of abusing its power, and that
when it was on top, some unions were aligned at times with the Mafia or with the American Communist
Party, on balance, do you think that labor unions have been a blessing or a curse to American society?
What about today, in 2026?
Answer: The instructor might present the following pros and cons for students’ consideration and debate:
PROS:
Better wages, benefits, and employment conditions for workers
Protection against unjust dismissal (no more employment-at-will for them)
Perhaps safer work places
CONS:
Employers lose their ability to be agile entrepreneurs due to numerous work rules.
Unions are often corrupt. Some have been associated with organized crime.
5. Question: Explain the Supreme Court’s attempts in the Alexander and Epic Systems cases to balance
private arbitration with public legal remedies, such as government agency and court cases. Do you think the
Court has struck the right balance? How did the End Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual
Harassment Act affect this balance? Should the EFAH be extended to all employment discrimination
claims?
Answer: In 1974, the Alexander Court determined that the right to be protected against illegal
discrimination is a protected statutory right, as is the right to have the government agency (the EEOC)
investigate the claim. Therefore, the union cannot waive an employee’s right to invoke the protection of the
law by binding the employee to a grievance or arbitration clause contained in a collective bargaining
agreement, in the case of a dispute arising under statutory law. The issue of mandatory grievance and
arbitration clauses arose again in 1991. In this case, Gilmer had signed the agreement to arbitrate, himself.
The waiver was not part of a collective bargaining agreement outside his control. Additionally, the Gilmer
Court noted that even though Gilmer was required to arbitrate the dispute, he was still allowed to request
that the EEOC investigate his claim. Therefore, his situation was different than Alexander’s.
6. Question: One reason that U.S. workers, especially in the manufacturing sector, have a hard time
competing with competitors in China, Southeast Asia, and India is wage differentials. And one reason
(though not the only one) that labor costs are so much lower in some of America’s major competitors, such
as Japan and Korea, is that the governments of these countries provide substantial pensions for workers, so
that the employers do not need to bear this expense. While providing such a pension (which would have to
be significantly larger than current Social Security retirement benefits) would not address wage
differentials between the U.S. and its many competitors in Asia and Latin America, this would help level
the playing field with others, such as Japan, Korea, and perhaps some of the European Union nations.
Should the U.S. Congress consider enacting such an expanded federal pension benefit? What are the pros
and cons? Alternatively, should Uncle Sam require U.S. employers to establish employee pension plans?
What are the pros and cons of doing this?
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 2
website, in whole or in part.
,Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
Answer: The reelection of President Obama for a second term in 2012, and the Democrats’ retention of a
majority in the Senate mean that major cuts in so-called “entitlement” programs, notably Social Security
and Medicare/Medicaid are unlikely. On the other hand, the size of the U.S. deficit and the tenaciously
sluggish economy, coming ever so slowly back from the Great Recession, make a significant enhancement
of Social Security benefits a virtual impossibility. At the same time, it seems highly unlikely that the GOP-
dominated House of Representatives is going to go along with mandatory pensions funded by employers.
To the contrary, the fiscal crises in many states, where defined-benefit plans have prevailed for public
employees, demonstrate that such plans are relics of a bygone era. The dramatic decline of unions in the
private sector means that few American workers have the leverage to force companies to dramatically
enhance, or to create where absent now, pension plans. Nor can we assume that workers, given the chance,
would necessarily agree to lower wages in return for pension plans.
7. Question: In Janus v. AFSCME, 585 U.S. 878 (2018), the U.S. Supreme Court held that public employee
unions could not constitutionally require employees in the bargaining unit to pay service fees if they chose
not to join the union and objected to such payments. This meant that public-sector unions had to represent
bargaining units that included free-riders. Public-employee union membership slipped to a new low of 36
percent by 2025, mostly due to the Janus decision. Putting aside partisan politics, what are the pros and
cons of attempts by assorted state legislatures and the Supreme Court to eliminate public employees’
collective bargaining rights and weaken or decertify their labor unions? Consider that public employees
already enjoy due process protections under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which do not
apply to private-sector employees.
Answer: One might argue that eliminating collective bargaining rights is a case of “throwing out the baby
with the bath water.” By this we mean that the real problem for most states is that unionized public
employees have defined-benefit pension plans, as well as guaranteed health care at retirement, following
20- to 30-year careers. These are Cadillac plans, which in many instances have been chronically
underfunded by the state legislatures for decades. Since taking these benefits away from employees who
already are vested is usually impossible, one idea behind elimination of bargaining rights is to make sure
future generations of public workers are not eligible for the same. Collective bargaining and union
representation usually also mean that employees are protected from arbitrary discipline. One could argue
that public employees are less in need of such protection, since public employers are restrained by the 14th
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which imposes on “state actors” most of the Bill of Rights, including
free speech, due process of law, and search-and-seizure prohibitions. The reasoning goes that for this
reason public workers should feel sufficiently secure from employer abuses that unions typically oppose in
the private sector.
8. Question: Explain the roles that the courts play in creating and/or implementing labor and employment
law. Do any of the roles that you can identify amount to unreasonable intrusions into the roles of Congress
and the state legislatures? Private enterprise?
Answer: American courts create common (judge made) law. The doctrine of employment at will was a
creation of the common law during the 19th century, when America was expanding west and developing
into a major industrial power. Later, American courts began fashioning exceptions to the pure doctrine of
at-will employment, most notably the public-policy exception. The courts also developed the related torts
of defamation, invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional harm, etc. Additionally, the courts interpret the
statutory law, including the anti-discrimination laws and major labor and wage & hour laws. With regard to
federal law, the US Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the law means. But we have seen—as, for
example, with the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act in 2008—that Congress is ready, willing
and able to overrule the Supreme Court, when the legislators feel that the high court has misinterpreted the
law and/or misapprehended Congressional intent. Private enterprise for its part often complains that the
courts accord workers too many rights. One might retort that the rise of individual employee rights, such as
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 3
website, in whole or in part.
, Solution and Answer Guide: Cihon and Castagnera, Employment and Labor Law, 11th Edition, ©2027, 9798214055909; Chapter 1: First the Forest, Then the Trees:
An Overview of Employment and Labor Law
the public policy exception to at will employ, has been in inverse proportion to the decline of labor unions
over the past 60 years.
9. Question: Having considered and, hopefully, discussed the ethical dilemma posed by the use (some
would say abuse) of executive orders by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden to achieve policy goals in
the face of congressional roadblocks, do you feel that the separation of powers, so carefully crafted by the
nation’s founders in the U.S. Constitution, has become too much an impediment to progress in the “Flat
Earth” environment in which America (and American workers) must compete? If so, how would you
amend the Constitution to deal with this governmental gridlock?
Answer: The instructor will need to lead this debate, should the instructor choose to use this problem.
The instructor may direct student to conduct research, including these web addresses:
https://search.whitehouse.gov/search?query=executive+order&op=Search&affiliate=wh
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/obama-subjects.html
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php
Some questions the instructor might throw out for consideration and debate include:
Republicans have compared President Obama’s ample use of executive orders to that of a
monarchy. Do you think this comparison holds water? What checks and balances are in place to
avoid “executive tyranny”? Do you think some of those checks and balances be eliminated to
make the pathway clearer for new laws?
How have President Obama’s executive orders helped close the wage gap for women and minority
workers?
10. Question: Along these same lines, do you believe, as do many conservatives, that labor unions have
outlived their usefulness in our “Flat Earth” economic environment? Or, alternatively, do you believe they
still play an important role in the American democracy? If so, what would you do to encourage more
American workers to rally to organized labor?
Answer: The TV pundit Bill Maher occasionally ruminates about why Americans, whose high-paying
industrial jobs have migrated overseas, and who are left working low-wage service jobs with few benefits,
are not flocking to labor unions. His concern, first of all, is overstated. In fact the Service Employees
International Union and some other labor organizations are enjoying increased success in attracting workers
on the lower rungs of the American economy. Some experts attribute the fact that more workers don’t
unionize to flaws in the National Labor Relations Act, which supposedly creates a level playing field but
actually favors employers in many ways, such as the slowness of its procedures and its limited remedies.
The Obama NLRB has tried to remedy the first of these perceived shortcomings by announcing regulations
in 2015 for so “snap elections” with limited opportunity for employers to prevent recognition by
committing unfair labor practices. It is difficult for unions to raise wages when jobs can be readily shipped
overseas. To counter this problem, some international labor unions have been organizing globally and/or
leveraging their strength in heavily unionized nations, such as Germany, to force multi-national firms to
recognize them in the U.S. and elsewhere.
© 2027 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible 4
website, in whole or in part.
