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Labor and Employment Law

For virtually everyone, the employment relationship—as employer or employee, or both—is the most significant legal relationship, apart from marriage and parenthood, that they will experience throughout their lives. The law has a great deal to say about the employment relationship: when it exists and when it doesn’t, what conditions always apply to it and what can never apply, the responsibilities of employer to employee and the duties of employee to employer, and the ways in which an employment relationship can be ended, voluntarily and involuntarily. Labor Law addresses the relatively narrow but enormously important relationship between employers and organizations of employees; that is, labor unions or employees seeking to form a union. Employment Law covers a much wider range of topics, including discrimination, wage and hour standards, pension plans, employment contracts, and termination of employment.

Core Faculty

• Terry Bethel, Professor of Law, is a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators and is highly regarded for both his scholarship and practical expertise in the area of labor arbitration. Professor Bethel has been appointed to many noteworthy public and professional service forums. He is author of numerous articles on labor law and co-author of the book, The Common Law of the Workplace (with Theodore St. Antoine). Washington DC: BNA, 1998.
• Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, Willard and Margaret Carr Professor of Labor and Employment Law, is the co-author of two widely used texts in labor and employment law: Labor and Employment Law: Cases and Materials, 3rd ed. (with Robert J. Rabin, et al.), St. Paul, MN: West Group, 2002, and Legal Protection for the Individual Employee, 3rd ed. (with Matthew W. Finkin, et al.), St. Paul, MN: West Group, 2002. Professor Dau-Schmidt is currently the Chair of the Labor Law Group, a national association of labor and employment law professors who meet tri-annually to plan course books on labor and employment law. He writes and teaches in the areas of labor and employment law and law and economics.
• Julia Lamber, founding member and past chair of the AALS section on Employment Discriminiation, currently teaches courses in civil rights and employment discrimination in addition to supervising the Law School's judicial externship program. Her current research project, "Political Culture, Equality Talk, and Educational Policymaking," a multidisciplinary undertaking with IU professors Jean Robinson (political science) and Pamela Walters (sociology), is funded by the Spencer Foundation.

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Core Law Courses

• Labor Law

  This course examines the law of union organizing and collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act. Topics examined include permissible organizational activities, the nature and negotiation of collective bargaining agreements, and the forms of economic pressure that can be used in organizing and collective bargaining (strikes, boycotts, picketing, and lockouts). (3 cr.) (Bethel, Dau-Schmidt)

• Employment Law

  This course provides an introduction to the law governing individual employment contracts and the employment relationship outside of a collective bargaining agreement. Topics covered include the hiring and firing of employees; the erosion of the employment-at-will doctrine; covenants not to compete; the employee's duty of loyalty and the protection of intellectual property and trade secrets; employee privacy and the use of lie detectors, drug testing, and medical testing; and the protection of employee health and safety under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. (2-3 cr.)( Dau-Schmidt)

• Employee Benefits Law

  Pension and employee-benefit law has become an important concern of public policy-makers and an increasingly large part of law practice. This course covers the regulation of voluntary employment benefits such as medical insurance and pensions under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act and the regulation of mandatory employee benefits such as Workers Compensation, Unemployment Compensation and Social Security. (2 cr.) (Dau-Schmidt)

• Labor and Employment Arbitration

  This course focuses on the administration of collective agreements after the bargaining relationship has been established. It examines private dispute resolution machinery, judicial enforcement of agreements to arbitrate, and the relationship between arbitration and other legal forums. (3 cr.) (Bethel)

• Employment Discrimination

  This course studies fair employment practices laws, primarily at the federal level. Issues of discrimination in employment on the basis of race, gender, religion, age, and disability and concepts of reasonable accommodation and affirmative action are stressed with a focus on litigation strategy and statistical methods of proof. (3 cr.) (Lamber)

• Seminar in Employment Discrimination: Sexual Harassment

  This seminar examines the developing law concerning sexual harassment. (3 cr.) (Lamber)

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Related Law Courses

• Contracts I & II

  These required first-year courses focus on the substantive and remedial aspects of agreements, including formation; rights and responsibilities of parties; and legal and equitable remedies in cases of breach or nonperformance. (5 credits) (Bethel, Boshkoff, Buxbaum, Ochoa)

• Civil Rights Statutes

  This course explores the details and wisdom of various federal civil rights laws (such as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, and the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act) that prohibit discrimination of the basis of race, gender, disabilities, age, and religion. (2 cr.) (Lamber)

• Administrative Law

  This course examines the constitutional justification for administrative agencies and their relationship to the legislature, the executive branch, and, in significant detail, the courts; administrative discretion to formulate policy and the manner in which policies are made; and specific topics including the constitutional basis of administrative procedure, the scope of judicial review, the difference between rule making and adjudication, the limits of procedural due process, and the Administrative Procedure Act. (2-3 cr.) (Aman, Craig, Fischman)

• Corporations

  This course is an introduction to business organizations, including the structure and characteristics of closely held and publicly held corporations; the promotion and formation of corporations; the distribution and balance of power among shareholders, directors, and officers; and the limitations on their power by state fiduciary duties and federal securities laws. (3-4 cr.) (Hicks, Henderson)

• Antitrust Law

  This course considers the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Act; their judicial and administrative construction; and underlying policies. It examines legal and economic concepts of monopoly and monopolization; collaboration among competitors to fix prices, regulate competition, create joint ventures, set the terms of dealing with others, or exchange patent licenses; vertical restraints including resale price maintenance, exclusive distribution arrangements, territorial and customer limitations, and tying and exclusive dealing arrangements; horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate mergers; and price discrimination. (3-4 cr.) ( Dau-Schmidt, Heidt)

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Related Campus Programs

• Division of Labor Studies

  Labor Studies is an interdisciplinary field that deals with work, the workplace, and workers and their organizations. It draws from the fields of history, economics, industrial relations, political science, law, sociology, communication, and philosophy, as well as other disciplines. As an academic discipline, Labor Studies educates workers and future workers to strengthen the labor movement and provide a richer understanding of its functions in society. Labor Studies offers a number of courses interesting to those considering a career in labor or employment law.

• School of Public and Environmental Affairs

  The School of Public and Environmental Affairs offers a number of courses of interest to students interested in public-sector employment concerns, including Human Resource Management in the Public Sector and Labor Relations in the Public Sector.

• Kelley School of Business

  The highly-ranked Kelley School of Business offers courses in human resources and management relevant to labor and employment lawyers.

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Student Activities

Each year one or two students participate in the National Law Students Workers' Rights Conference hosted by the Peggy Browning fund and the AFL-CIO in Washington D.C. Students also participate in either the Peggy Browning Fellowship (working in the summer for organizations like the AFL-CIO, the Chicago Newspaper Guild, AFSCME, Friends of Farm Workers, Inc.); a summer clerkship with the UAW Legal Department in Detroit, Michigan; or the AFL-CIO's Law Student Union Summer.

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Recent Conferences and Enrichment

• Labor Law and Politics at the Labor Board: Ruminations of a Former Chairman
  William B. Gould IV, former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board presenting the Ralph F. Fuchs Lecture (March 9, 1999)
• New Rules for a New Game: Regulating Employment Relationships in the 21st Century
  (Carr Symposium on Labor and Employment Law) (September 23-23, 1999 )
• Enforceability of Arbitration Agreements after Circuit City v. Adams
  (Distinguished Speaker's Series with Indiana State Bar Association's Council on Labor and Employment Law) (September 27, 2001)
• Globalization and the New Politics of Labor

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