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Fellows Have Book Published Fellows Don Spero, Gail Golman Holtzman and Paul Starkman recently had their book, "Employment Arbitration: Law and Practice, 2007-2008 ed." published by Thomson West (February 2008). "This treatise provides complete coverage of employment arbitration and is written as a practice guide for employment specialists as well as general practitioners. Beginning with a discussion of the background of arbitration, it then covers creating effective arbitration provisions (with forms, examples, and checklists) and discusses how to arbitrate employment disputes. It also covers post-arbitration litigation. Other topics covered include adoption of employment arbitration programs, litigation about employment arbitration, and penalties for frivolous vacatur petitions. Arbitration forms, language, clauses, and procedures are provided." Features
For more information or to order, go to: http://west.thomson.com/store/product.aspx?product_id=40588490&promcode=568905
20 Reasons Why People Don't Respect Lawyers The Way They Used To
What changed? Read Philip's article which appeared in the April 2008 edition of The Practical Lawyer.
The International Society for Labor and Social Security Law Mr. Youngdahl was inducted a Fellow of the College in 2000. He is a union lawyer whose practice is based in Friendswood, Texas. For many Fellows of the College and their colleagues, the internationalization of labor law and relations is becoming a real part of their work. To highlight just a few areas in our field of growing attention to the global legal landscape, those in academia work on issues of comparative labor and employment law, union lawyers consider international aspects of comprehensive corporate campaigns in support of the objectives of their clients, and management attorneys are increasingly called upon to give advice on the international ramifications of the employment policies of their employer clients. Along with this growing international focus of our practices, a number of professional bodies exist to aid interaction among employment and labor lawyers throughout the globe. One of these bodies is the International Society for Labor and Social Security Law. Founded in 1958, the ISLSSL is composed of national affiliates whose members are scholars, union and management lawyers, judges, government officials, arbitrators, industrial relations and human resources specialists, and others interested in promoting international exchange of ideas and information and in developing collaboration among experts in the fields of labor, employment and employee benefits law. The U.S. branch of the ISLSSL is soliciting new members. Dues are cheap and opportunities to converse with those who do the same things you do but in very different context are available. Every three years the ISLSSL conducts a World Congress and Regional Congresses during the interim years. The next World Congress will be in Sydney, Australia in 2009. These meetings allow members to gain an expanded understanding of how labor and employment law operate elsewhere and to explain our system to others. ISLSSL conferences also facilitate development of new personal contacts and promote important scholarship, education and training in the fields of comparative and international labor law, employment law, and related fields. In addition, the U.S. Branch occasionally sponsors one day conferences, and along with the University of Illinois College of Law publish The Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, a quarterly law journal which publishes articles in the field of comparative and transnational labor and employment law. Last October, as part of a group from the United States which included the current President of the U.S. Branch of ISLSSL Dean Steven L. Willborn, College Fellows Alvin Goldman and Ted St. Antoine, and several others, I was privileged to be part of a delegation to the VII Americas Regional Conference of the ISLSSL held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In spite of extraordinary personal suffering to the Dominican people and significant damage to two of the conference venues from the massive flooding caused by Tropical Storm Noel which had hit the country just days before, this Conference was attended by over 250 lawyers from nearly all the countries of the Americas. The keynote speaker was the Vice-President of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Alburquerque, who is a labor law scholar in his own right. At the conference, panels of lawyers from countries throughout the Americas presented talks on the state of the law in their countries on three general themes. These themes included, the impact on labor relations when companies face economic difficulties, legal protections against discrimination toward workers for participation in union activity, and, finally, legal protections for workers who suffer illness or other physical difficulties. On each panel one discussant gave an overview of the state of the law in each of the three areas of the Americas -- South, Central, and North. Next, an attorney from one country in each area followed with an in depth discussion as to the state of the law and practice in their country on that theme. Each of the Fellows in attendance participated in one of the panels. Simultaneous translation services were provided, which was especially helpful to those of us from the United States who are unable to understand law discussed in Spanish, as for most of the participants, Spanish was their language of choice. One member of our delegation, Professor Roberto Corrado, was roundly praised for his ability to give his talk in Spanish. Overall, I found the conference to be fascinating. Talking with those who practice in our area in the Americas, allows one to step back and consider our daily work from a different vantage point. Substantively at the conference, two matters stood out for me as a union lawyer.1 First, I was unaware of the extent to which, since the passage of the Wagner Act, American labor law has been an influential and important resource for Latin American countries developing rules and regulations for their growing economies. As we know, but often need to be reminded, the preamble to this law specifically encourages collective bargaining as a way to decrease industrial strife and to guarantee freedom of association in the workplace. With much credit to this early American law, the right to freely associate at work is now considered a core international human right throughout the world, has become part of most nations laws, and is reinforced by a number of International treaties and conventions. This is obvious in the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Health Services and Support – Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia, 2007 SCC 27, Supreme Court of Canada, June 8, 2007, that under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, their Bill of Rights, freedom of association in the workplace, through unionization and the right to bargain as a group with an employer, is a "fundamental Canadian right" which enhances "human dignity, liberty, and autonomy." Second, we in the United States are facing labor issues in some ways which are very common with those in the rest of the Americas. However, in other ways we are unique. Current issues which occupy labor practitioners and academics in the general employment context, such as disability rights, protections against sexual discrimination, and the status of rights of workers when companies are struggling to economically survive are being faced in similar manners by our colleagues throughout the Americas. Certain issues which are difficult to consider in our country due to our extant body of law, such as the right to act in a collective manner by the growing numbers of self-employed, are receiving scrutiny in other coutries of the Americas. However, on the issue of union organizing and union rights, the Untied States stands alone in the Americas for the procedural and legal enmity which exists today. Nowhere in the Americas is "union avoidance" an industry, or are voluntary arrangements for unionization, such as that considered in the recent NLRB decision in Dana Corp., 351 NLRB No. 28 (Sept. 29, 2007), under attack by governmental regulators. On a significant positive note, however, it must be kept in mind that unionists are not targeted by death squads in the U.S. as they are in several countries in the Americas. Please feel free to contact me or any of the other men mentioned in this article if you have any desire to participate with ISLSSL in the future. ISLSSL would love to have you. 1 The following comments are personal and in no way reflect the institutional views of the ISLSSL or any of the
other participants at the meeting.
Interprofessional Projects: Developing Professional Skills Through Interdisciplinary Problem-solving Mr. Burstein was inducted a Fellow of the College in 1997. Admitted as a management lawyer, he is now retired and teaches labor and employment law at IIT in Chicago, Illinois. It is often asserted that a goal of higher education is to provide students with the skills they need to succeed in the professional world. Still. In the traditional classroom environment, even the most dedicated and inspirational instructors can usually do little more than transfer their knowledge to students. Whether or not even the most prepared and motivated students can then apply that knowledge in a workplace environment that involves complex decision-making remains a rather unsettling unknown. Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is addressing this weak link in the traditional learning process through its Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) course. The IPRO team project course represents an IIT general education requirement through which all undergraduates complete two three-credit-hour IPRO project experiences. There are on the order of 40 IPRO team projects organized each semester involving 500 students from all professional programs that span architecture, business, computer science, engineering, liberal arts, psychology and the sciences. Graduate students that represent these fields as well as law and design may also contribute their expertise to a team. Each IPRO team is comprised of 5 to 15 students from multiple disciplines, working together to develop solutions to contemporary problems facing industry and society. Teams are engaged in experiences that encompass research, design, process improvement, venture development and entrepreneurship, service learning and international engagement. Whether focused to such topics as reestablishing the rule of law in Bosnia, evaluating the commercial potential of water purification technology for developing countries or performing techno-economic assessments of technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, these projects offer students the opportunity to apply the skills they learn in the classroom to a problem that has a real impact on the world. Underlying every IPRO project experience is a set of learning objectives related to multidisciplinary teamwork, project management, communication and ethics. External evaluation of the quality of an IPRO project team's work is an extremely important professional gauge of the success of the IPRO course experience. One way that the program integrates external evaluation is by inviting workplace professionals to participate on judging panels that evaluate IPRO team accomplishments at the end-of-semester IPRO Projects Day Conference. This all-day event offers ITT's IPRO teams the challenge of presenting their work via formal oral presentations and interactive exhibits. IPRO Day is open to the ITT community, organizations seeking to recruit ITT students, sponsors and prospective sponsors, alumni, trustees, high school and community college students and professionals from throughout the Chicago area. Each team's presentation and exhibit are evaluated, and the top-performing teams are recognized in an awards ceremony at the end of the day. An ITT Thought Leader Speaker is also featured. Past speakers have included Nicholas D'Onofrio, Executive VO for Innovation & Technology, IBB, Christopher Galvin Chairman & Co-Founder, Harrison Street Capital LLC and former Chairman and CEO, Motorola, Inc., Lord Ronald Oxburgh, KBE, former Chairman of the Board Shell Oil Company. London and John Rowe, CEO Exelon Corporation and Chairman, ITT Board of Trustees. Additional judges are always welcome! The IPRO Day Conference events for 2008 are scheduled for May 2, July 25 and December 5. Anyone interested in participating as a judge in an upcoming IPRO Day event, please contact Tom Jacobius, Director of Interprofessional Studies & the IPRO Program at jacobius@itt.edu To learn more about IPRO Day and the IPRO Program, please visit http://ipro.iit.edu
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"In 1967, when I commenced by legal career, I was amazed
to discover that simply because I was a lawyer, I was really an important person with all sorts of privileges and was generally respected by most, if not all, persons with whom I
had dealings, or even contact. For example, even though my income was about $6,000 per year, I could borrow more than three times that on my signature. Now, over 40 years
later, I find that lawyers are the butt of jokes, subject to ridicule and hatred, and accorded a respect level of the lowest order."
