BLS Library Blog

 May 1st is International Labour Day and in Greece it is called ‘Protomagia’ (literally meaning the first day of May). It is an urban holiday when people traditionally go to the countryside for picnics, to fly kites and to gather wild flowers. On this day there many parades and other festivities throughout the country. It is a national holiday which means that everything is closed, with the exception of cafes and food venues.

The custom of Protomagia has its roots in ancient Greece as a celebration of spring, nature, and flowers. Flower wreaths, typically made from hand picked wild flowers, are hung on the doors of many homes in a way to welcome nature and all things good. Maios (May) the last month of Spring took its name from the Goddess Maja, a goddess who took her name from the ancient word Maia, the nurse and mother. May, according to Greek folklore, has two meanings: The good and the bad, rebirth and death. The custom celebrates the final victory of the summer against winter as the victory of the life against death go back to the ancient years and culminate at the first day of May. This day was also dedicated to the goddess of agriculture Dimitra and her daughter Persephone, who on this day emerges from the under world and comes to earth. Her coming to earth from Hades marks the blooming of nature and the birth of summer.

May 1st is International Workers’ Day, also known as Labour Day in some places, a celebration of laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement, anarchists, socialists, and communists and occurs every year on the 1st of May. The date was chosen as International Workers’ Day by the Second International to commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on 4 May 1886. Being a traditional European spring celebration, May Day is a national public holiday in many countries, but in only some of those countries is it celebrated specifically as “Labour Day” or “International Workers’ Day”. The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, held April 27 during the Roman Republic era.

The Brooklyn Law School Library New Books List for April 1, 2018 has 42 print titles and 30 e-book titles. Among them is one e-title The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon by David Webber, a rare good-news story for American workers. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength. When the CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a novel approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of CEO’s boardroom allies. In the book, the author uses cases such as Safeway’s to shine a light on labor’s most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, state houses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor’s capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic’s surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor’s access to this powerful and underused tool.

This book could be the modern bible of the movement to harness labor’s capital for working-class interests. It is a riveting and thoughtful book that is not only a fast and fun read, but contributes wonderfully to a new and ongoing conversation about inequality, dark money, and populism in the electorate. On Wednesday, April 18 at 4pm, Brooklyn Law School will host a Book Talk with David Webber, Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law to discuss the book. It is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Business Law and Regulation.

Just before Labor Day 2010, Crain’s New York Business looks at the state of unions in New York and the nation. An article by Greg David, Unions in New York: a Labor Day Update, says that unions remain strong in New York but in the rest of the country they do not. New York remains the most unionized state in the country with almost twice the percentage of workers organized as elsewhere in the country. Last year, members of unions comprised 25.2% of the workforce in the New York State. New York has been the most unionized state in the nation for years except for 2006, when Hawaii bested New York by a third of a percentage point.

This chart, compiled from data maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the comparison of union membership as a percentage of all workers in the US as compared to New York.



Nationally, unions now represent only 12.3% of workers and that number has declined over the last 10 years. According to a Press Release from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of unionized public sector workers outnumbered the number of organized private sector workers in 2009, the first time that has happened. Highlights from the 2009 data include these items:

• More public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private sector
  employees (7.4 million), despite there being 5 times more wage and salary workers in the private sector.
• Workers in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rate at 38.1 percent.
• Black workers were more likely to be union members than were white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
• Among states, New York had the highest union membership rate (25.2 percent) and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.1 percent).

Brooklyn Law School Library subscribes to Crain’s New York Business in print.

An article in BNA’s US Law Week (available on the BLS Library’s E-Journals & Databases A-Z list) reports that the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, with Brooklyn Law School’s former Dean and current Eastern District of New York Judge David G. Trager, sitting by designation, allowed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to seek more information about how UPS Inc. handles religious exemptions to its nationwide ban on beards for certain employees. The November 19 decision, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. United Parcel Service Inc., reversed the lower court’s refusal to enforce the EEOC’s subpoena after concluding that “how religious exemptions to the UPS Appearance Guidelines are (or are not) granted nationwide was not relevant to the charges being investigated.” Before the ruling by the Second Circuit, employers cited the EEOC v. UPS lower court ruling for the proposition that an EEOC subpoena must be limited to what was relevant to the underlying charge.

At issue for UPS was its Uniform and Personal Appearance Guideline prohibiting employees in public-contact positions from wearing any facial hair below the lower lip. Until 1999, UPS did not place employees who wore facial hair below the lower lip in public-contact positions. In 1999, UPS adopted a formal religious accommodation policy that allowed employees an exemption from the Appearance Guidelines for religious reasons. The suit on which the Second Circuit ruled involved the EEOC’s investigation of two cases, one from Buffalo and the other from Dallas, with a Muslim job applicant who alleged that he was denied a public-contact driver position because he refused to shave his beard and a current UPS employee, who claimed that he was denied a public-contact driver position because he refused to shave his beard and that when he requested a religious accommodation form and an accommodation, he was denied both. 

The EEOC subpoena sought (1) all documents related to the Appearance Guidelines and a list of all jobs which are subject to the Guidelines; (2) identifying information for all job applicants denied employment because of their refusal to adhere to the Appearance Guidelines since January 1, 2004; (3) identifying information for all employees who requested a religious accommodation exemption from the Appearance Guidelines and the outcomes of those requests since January 1, 2004; and (4) identifying information for all employees who were terminated for reasons relating to the Appearance Guidelines since January 1, 2004.

An employer’s obligation to make reasonable accommodations to the religious views of its prospective and current employees is one of the most contentious and difficult areas for employees and employers to navigate. In a diverse and religiously pluralistic society, conflict is bound to occur not only about appearances but also about religious beliefs. Consider the case of Buonanno v. AT&T Broadband, LLC, 313 F.Supp.2d 1069, 93 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1204 (D.Colo. 2004) where the employer workplace diversity initiatives included acceptance of gays and lesbians that one employee found offensive on the basis of religion. The employee told his employer that his sincerely held religious beliefs against homosexuality conflicted with his employer’s requirement that he sign a code of conduct that contains a diversity policy requiring each employee to “fully recognize, respect and value” differences among co-workers. He claimed that there was a conflict because he claimed he cannot value any “difference” that is “contrary to God’s word.” The District Court awarded $146,269 to the former AT&T Broadband worker after the company fired him for refusing to sign the diversity policy. 

In reviewing that decision, an article entitled The Duty of Accommodation and the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2003: From Bad Policy to Worse Law at 55 Labor Law Journal 155 (Fall 2004) (Call #P L12 and online in ProQuest Central in the Library’s A-Z list) captures some of the difficulties in serving both the interests of employees in the exercise of their religious beliefs and the interests of employers in the exercise of their legitimate managerial prerogatives. With the Second Circuit broadening the subpoena powers of the EEOC in the enforcement of Title VII religious accommodation duty, employers face even more of a challenge when dealing with religious views in the workplace.

The US Department of Labor web site on the History of Labor Day states that “Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” It goes on to say: “The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy.“

Sadly, there remains a large segment of the labor force that does not share in many of those social and economic achievements. A new report, Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities states that more than two-thirds of low-wage workers were paid less than what they were legally owed for the work they did. The report is based on a survey conducted the National Employment Law Project (which is part of Brooklyn Law School’s Public Service Law Program). The survey of more than 4,000 workers in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles exposes a world of work in which the core protections that many Americans take for granted—the right to be paid at least the minimum wage, the right to be paid for overtime hours, the right to take meal breaks, access to workers’ compensation when injured, and the right to advocate for better working conditions—are failing significant numbers of workers.

The Executive Summary states:

In 2008, we conducted a landmark survey of 4,387 workers in low-wage industries in the three largest U.S. cities—Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City. We used an innovative, rigorous methodology that allowed us to reach vulnerable workers who are often missed in standard surveys, such as unauthorized immigrants and those paid in cash. Our goal was to obtain accurate and statistically representative estimates of the prevalence of workplace violations. All findings are adjusted to be representative of front-line workers (i.e. excluding managers, professional or technical workers) in low wage industries in the three cities—a population of about 1.64 million workers, or 15 percent of the combined workforce of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

The report makes three major findings:

• Finding 1: Workplace Violations Are Severe and Widespread in Low-Wage Labor Markets
• Finding 2: Job and Employer Characteristics Are Key to Understanding Workplace Violations
• Finding 3: All Workers Are at Risk of Workplace Violations

The section of the report dealing with solutions states that everyone has a stake in addressing the problem of workplace violations and identifies three key principles that should drive the development of a strong policy agenda at the federal, state and local levels.

1. Strengthening government enforcement of employment and labor
2. Updating legal standards for the 21st century labor market
3. Establishing equal status for immigrants in the workplace

Last week marked the 19th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 issuing this Signing Statement. Since then, the act has brought about changes to public spaces and buildings making them more accessible to disabled persons. It also changed laws to require employers to make accommodations for workers who have special needs due to a disability.

To mark the anniversary, the US Department of Labor issued a news release announcing that it has re-named and re-launched DisabilityInfo.gov as Disability.gov. According to the release:

The site now offers comprehensive information about programs and services to better serve the more than 50 million Americans with disabilities, their family members, veterans, employers, educators, caregivers and anyone interested in disability-related information. The new Web site integrates content from 22 federal agencies and will be managed by the Labor Department. The former site was revamped with social media tools to encourage interaction and feedback, and new ways to organize, share and receive information. Visitors can sign up for personalized news and updates, participate in online discussions and suggest resources for the site. New features include a Twitter feed, Really Simple Syndication feeds, a blog, social bookmarking and a user-friendly way to obtain answers to questions on such topics as finding employment and job accommodations. Additional tools will be added during the months ahead.

The site is organized into 10 subject areas: benefits, civil rights, community life, education, emergency preparedness, employment, health, housing, technology and transportation. By selecting a category, visitors are directed to useful information on federal and state government programs and services, news and events, grants and funding opportunities, and more.

The BLS Library has a great deal of material on the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 which can be found in SARA, the library’s online catalog. The most recent acquisitions is Reassignment Under the ADA: Must an Employer Hire a Minimally Qualified, Disabled Employee Over a More Qualified, Non-Disabled Applicant?: A Legal Research Guide by Amy R. Stein (Call #KF3469 .S75 2009). This volume is part of a series of Legal Research Guides published by William S. Hein & Co. and is described in a Hein release that lists other legal research guides published by Hein.

Another recent item in the BLS collection is Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act by William D. Goren (Call #KF480 .G67 2006) with these chapters: Concepts underlying the ADA and key definitions — Essential functions of the job — Concept of undue hardship and reasonable accommodation in the employment context — Treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts — Preemployment medical exams/disability-related inquiries — The ADA and health insurance — ADA and the public sector (Title II) — Places of public accommodations and commercial facilities — The ADA and the health-care provider — The interrelationship between the ADA and other laws — Remedies and procedural issues — ADA and sports — Hot areas — Are you ready to rock and roll with your ADA case?