Tag Archives: labor unions

Unions and the Screen Writers’ Strike

By tmess2 | Published May 7, 2023

With rare exceptions, labor disputes tend to get very little media attention.  A strike at your local supermarket only impacts the workers and the customers at the supermarket, and the customers are able to shift to another supermarket.  And the ones that would have major disruptions on major products tends to get resolved quickly.  A major car manufacture and the UAW know that a long-term strike benefits neither side; so both sides work hard to resolve things without a strike.

But a strike in the entertainment industry is different.  The strike gets front and center attention quickly — a strike in sports means that games are not played; a strike in movies/tv means that nothing new gets produced and only shows/movies that are already completed can be released.  But there is no readily available replacement.  Strikes tend to be industry-wide.  So it’s not just the Tennessee Titans that are unable to field a team, but every other team in the NFL too.  Likewise, it’s not just Saturday Night Live which is unable to broadcast a new show, but every other live scripted show.  And since people are used to seeing these shows/sporting events on a regular basis, the loss of the content is instantly noticed.  But, while the networks and leagues would like to not have the shutdown, they know that their customers will come back when things restart.  So “management” can cope with  the temporary disruption of a strike to some extent.  And the workers also know that the industry will be back in full force when the strike ends.  While there may be some lost paychecks, if they have banked some money in advance of the strike, the workers know that their jobs will probably be there in two to three months.   (Of course, the disruption might kill a particular show or movie, but there will be another show or movie around to hire the workers, and the loss of a season in the prime of their careers will have some negative impact on the career earnings of athletes.)

For all that screenwriters live an entirely different universe than most other workers. the current strike shares themes with the strikes in less glamourous income with two common issues being at the center of the dispute. Continue Reading...

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The Supreme Court and the War on the New Deal

By tmess2 | Published June 27, 2021

Back when I was in law school, the fringier aspects of conservative legal thought were laying the ground work for attacking several key doctrines of the New Deal.  Now those fringier elements are at the core of the conservative theory, and we are seeing the fruits of those efforts.  This week, there were several key decisions by the Supreme Court in cases dealing with the “Administrative State” and labor unions.

Prior to the New Deal, the Supreme Court had stood in the way of attempts empower executive branch agencies.  By the 1940s, the Supreme Court had made several key decisions that allowed independent agencies and executive branch departments to operate.  These decisions included:  1) limiting the scope of the non-delegation doctrine (the doctrine that Congress could not delegate the power to make laws to administrative agencies); 2) deference to the decisions of executive branch agencies; 3) the  existence of independent agencies (agencies whose heads could only be removed for cause); and 4) quasi-judicial administrative hearings in which “administrative law judges” reviewed the claims of parties with their decisions reviewed by courts rather than political appointees.  In recent years, we have seen cases calling into question all of these doctrines.  This week, we got decisions in two cases involving two of these issues.

Up first is Collins.  This case, in which Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion, is the latest involving the independence of executive branch agency heads.  For certain agencies, Congress has attempted to protect the agencies from political interference by giving the agency head a set term with the president only being able to remove that appointee for cause.  This case involves some of the reforms enacted in response to the mortgage crisis.  The specific statute created the Federal Housing Finance Agency as part of the rescue of two private companies — the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association (Freddie Mac) — to oversee those two corporations.  The agency is managed by a single director who is removable for cause.  Part of this director’s authority is to act as a receiver for these two organizations.   In that capacity, the director negotiated changes to the terms of the loan that the U.S. Treasury made to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  Because these two organizations are technically private organization (although chartered by the federal government to serve specific roles in the housing market), they have private investors who sued to challenge the renegotiated agreement.  Following up on prior decisions, the Supreme Court continued its war on limitations on the power of the president to remove an  agency head.  At some point, this war will have serious policy impact when a president chooses to remove an agency head for following the law and replaces that agency head with somebody who will not follow the law. Continue Reading...

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June at the Supreme Court — October 2017 Term

By tmess2 | Published June 3, 2018

Because the Supreme Court has a custom of publishing opinions in the same term as the oral argument on a case and the justices like to wrap up their work before July 4, June is always an active month at the Supreme Court — the legal equivalent of an everything must go closeout sale.  Because during the rest of the year, the Supreme Court issues decisions as the opinions are ready for release, the June opinions reflect two groups of cases.  First, there are the cases from late in the year — March and April primarily — for which a June decision would reflect a somewhat normal opinion pace.  Even for a unanimous decision, it takes time to write an opinion, and sixty days is somewhat the norm even for unanimous opinion.  Second, there are the difficult cases.  While sixty days from argument to opinion is a good pace when everyone agrees, if other justices want to write an opinion (dissenting or concurring) in response to the initial opinion that extends things considerably — particularly if the original author revises their draft to respond to the other opinions as sometimes happens.

This year’s caseload for June is somewhat on the high end for recent years with 29 cases still pending.  (For now the Supreme Court is just issuing cases on Monday, but, at some point this month, the Supreme Court will add additional days each week.  Needing to issue seven cases per week, my hunch is that they will go to two days per week starting June 11, but they might hold off to June 18.)  While there have been other years with more cases still pending at this point in time, what makes this year exceptional is the low number of cases decided.  The Supreme Court only had 63 arguments this year, reflecting the continued decline in accepting cases.  Of those 63 cases, two were dismissed meaning that the Supreme Court has only decided 32 argued cases this year.   As would be expected, the Supreme Court has decided most of the cases from argued between October and January — 28 decisions out of 34 cases.  Of the twenty-nine cases argued in February, March, and April, the Supreme Court has dismissed two cases and decided four cases.  Because the Supreme Court tries to balance out opinion assignments from each argument session, that means that there is some clue as to who is handling the pending cases from the first four argument sessions, but very little clue as to the last three sessions.

From October, there is only one case left and it is bigly important — Gill vs. Whitford on partisan gerrymandering.  Based on the other opinions from October, it appears that Chief Justice Roberts got the initial assignment on the case.  Normally, that would be a bad sign for those who believe that the Supreme Court has some role to play in assuring fair elections.  However, after the initial conference, the Supreme Court did accept a second case on partisan gerrymandering.  I can also see a situation in which the majority saw problems with the standard used by the panel but could not agree on what the standard should be.  That split would allow Chief Justice Roberts to assign the case to himself but could lead to a situation (like the last time that the Supreme Court considered this issue) in which there was no majority opinion.  Or the argument in the second case may have clarified issues resulting in one of the other justices now having the majority opinion. Continue Reading...

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Supreme Court 2017-18 Term Preview: Part I (October arguments)

By tmess2 | Published September 16, 2017

It’s mid-September which means that the Supreme Court will soon be returning to Washington for this year’s term.  The Supreme Court, for the most part, controls what cases it will schedule for full briefing and oral argument.  For this fall, the Supreme Court has a total of twenty-eight cases (actually a little more, but several cases have been consolidated) available for argument over seventeen argument days.  They have posted the schedule of cases for October and November with the remaining cases likely to be scheduled for December (although some may be heard in January).  It is unclear if the low number of cases is the product of the time that it took to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court or is the continuation of the long-term trend under the last three Chief Justices to gradually reduce the number of cases heard.    However, the numbers tend to support the “reducing the docket” theory.  While the January “holdover” cases are slightly low (only three), the number of cases on which the Supreme Court granted review in February and March are close to average.  The real “below average” months are the months after Justice Gorsuch took the bench.

This part will look at the cases currently scheduled for argument in the  “October” session beginning on October 2.  As in past years, I will be focusing mostly on the “political” case, those dealing with elections or with heated public policy issues.  These cases aren’t the entirety of the Supreme Court docket.  A lot of the Supreme Court docket deals with resolving conflicts over the interpretation of interpretation of federal statutes or handling criminal justice issues.  These cases do not get a lot of media attention, but they do matter to the persons impacted by them.

Of the ten cases on the October docket, three deal with immigration issues.  Two of the cases (Dimaya) and (Jennings) are rearguments from last year.  The belief is that these cases were probably 4-4 splits, but that might not be the case for Jennings. Continue Reading...

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