On the At-Will Employment Regime - Part II
On the At-Will Employment Regime - Part II
With Cynthia Estlund, Catherine A. Rein Professor at NYU School of Law | Interviewed by Matt Crossman
AccelPro Community Event
On Pay Discrimination: a live discussion with Jessica Stender, Policy Director at Equal Rights Advocates, a national civic rights organization. Please join us.
When: Wednesday, September 27, 2023, 3pm - 4pm ET
Where: Zoom link to be provided
Topics: We will discuss pay discrimination + careers in civil rights with Jessica and take questions from the AccelPro Employment Law community
Availability is limited.
The episode transcript and additional resources can be found here.
Welcome to AccelPro Employment Law, where we provide interviews and products to accelerate your professional development. Today we’re going to continue talking about our country’s employment at-will regime and the power imbalance it creates between employers and employees.
Our guest is Cynthia Estlund, a leading scholar of labor and employment law and workplace governance. Currently a professor at NYU’s Law School, she has also taught at Harvard, Columbia and the University of Texas.
We dove so deep on this issue that we turned it into two episodes. This is part two, in which we explore ways to rebalance that imbalance of power and search for possible solutions, as U.S. workers lag behind the developed world in terms of power in the workplace.
Businesses could be proactive and cede power in the name of a better workplace, which could improve productivity or profits or both. Or, Congress could pass a law requiring businesses to treat employees better. “The problem is it’s a high-risk strategy because Congress could do something much worse than what we have now from the standpoint of employees,” Estlund says. “So we muddle through.”
Be sure to check out part one, in which we break down what employment at-will means for employees and employers.
Interview References:
Cynthia Estlund’s NYU Law faculty page
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4:34 | Adams, Zoe and Bishop, Louise and Deakin, Simon F. and Fenwick, Colin and Martinsson Garzelli, Sara and Rusconi, Giudy. (2018). The Economic Significance of Laws Relating to Employment Protection and Different Forms of Employment: Analysis of a Panel of 117 Countries, 1990-2013. University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 36/2018, European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) - Law Working Paper No. 406/2018.
13:27 | Wrongful Discharge Law, N.Y.C. Admin. Code §§ 20-1271 to 20-1275. (2021).
17:23 | Krawiec ,Kimberly D. (2003). Cosmetic Compliance and the Failure of Negotiated Governance. Washington University Law Review, 81(2).
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