Suchergebnisse

It was a relatively quiet year in the Virginia labor and employment law arena, with no real groundbreaking cases or legislative enactments. There were developments in case law and legislative changes, but these were more subtle this year than in years past, and for the most part, the courts confirmed, affirmed, or clarified the existing state of the law. This article discusses cases and legislative activity of note in the Virginia labor and employment law arena during the past year. Part II addresses recent cases considering employment agreements under Virginia law. Part III considers cases in the continually evolving area of wrongful discharge claims. Part IV concerns employer liability for the wrongful acts of employees. Part V addresses defamation in the context of the employment relationship. Part VI discusses a recent case involving a misappropriation of trade secrets claim by an employer against its former employees. Part VII outlines recent developments in unemployment compensation law. Finally, Part VIII gives an overview of legislative developments during the 2005 Session of the Virginia General Assembly

This article discusses four principal areas of employment and labor law in which there was significant activity in Virginia's courts and/or the legislature over the past year: (1) public policy wrongful discharge; (2) negligent hiring, retention, and supervision; (3) employment references; and (4) covenants not to compete and the employee's fiduciary duties owed to the employer. Beyond the scope of this article are decisions rendered in other areas of law affecting the employment relationship, including workers' compensation, unemployment, wage payment, and public sector employment.

This Article uses a historical perspective as a basis to analyze the current state of labor and employment law in the United States. The Article first chronicles the decline in collective governance and the corresponding rise in the governmental regulation of the individual employment relation during the past 50 years, and attempts to ascertain the socio-economic forces contributing to this evolution. The Article then critiques the current state of workplace legal rules and finds a number of deficiencies in terms of both efficiency and equity. The Article pays particular attention to the impact of globalization and the resulting exacerbation in the imbalance of power between labor and capital. The Article concludes by making four recommendations for systemic law reform with an eye toward the development of new international norms in the areas of job security, collective bargaining, employee participation programs, and the legal status of the contingent workforce.