I have great concern that the end of the pandemic will be rife with confusing politics. No sitting president wants a paralyzed economy leading into the election for a second term. Furthermore, that president's adversaries may be seen as having
Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog
Latest from Workers’ Compensation Law Prof Blog - Page 11
Damon Silvers on Coronavirus and the Gig Economy
Damon Silvers, my classmate at the Harvard Law School a long time ago (we were 1Ls in 1992), and now Special Counsel to the AFL-CIO and professor, has a thought provoking piece up on the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public…
Disaster Unemployment Assistance As Potentially Prompt Help for Gig Workers Impacted by Virus
Stephen A. Woodbury, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, has posted a very encouraging short post on possible relief for Gig workers:Disaster Unemployment Assistance would make these self-employed workers, contract workers, and gig workers eligible to…
It Wouldn’t Have Taken Much To Disrupt a Gig Economy—But Much is What We Have
From the New York Times:The coronavirus pandemic is exposing the fragile situations of gig economy workers — the Uber and Lyft drivers, food-delivery couriers and TaskRabbit furniture builders who are behind the convenience-as-a-service apps that are now part of everyday life.…
COVID-19 and Labor and Employment Law Production in Times of Historical Emergency
One of the difficulties I have teaching “younger” students about workers’ compensation (and other bodies of labor and employment law) is that the rationales for the law have often arisen from extraordinary historical times not remotely similar to any they…
Workers’ Compensation Protected by Potential for Arbitration Swarm?
Last month, DoorDash made news when thousands of the company’s worker-“Dashers” decided to pursue misclassification claims in arbitration, one-by-one, a concept known as “swarming.” (Companies appear to be popping up to assist plaintiffs’ counsel in setting up swarming practices). This…
Disasters and Fissures: Coronavirus, Google, the Unworthy Sick, and Workers’ Compensation Causation
No Grand Bargain: A Counter Perspective on “Portable Benefits”
I was quoted the other day in Bloomberg News on the subject of “portable benefits”—benefits paid to “gig workers” in lieu of “real benefits” because, well, it’s better than nothing. It may not surprise you to learn that, contrary to…
Is Wyoming’s Proposed Workers’ Compensation PTSD Bill a “Special Law”?
A bill has been proposed in the Wyoming Senate that would provide first responders with workplace mental injury coverage. I support the bill, but it does seem at least problematic on “special laws” grounds. As Professor Justin Long at Wayne…
Was Worker Safety Advocate Pressured by ABA to Withdraw from Conference Panel After Releasing Report Critical of Amazon?
The story, authored by Eli Rosenberg, ran in yesterday's Washington Post:A workers advocate faced pressure to withdraw from an American Bar Association conference panel on worker safety in the weeks after she helped author a report critical of Amazon, a…