Employment terminations bring `at will' rules into play.
Byline: Donna Renton-Ried Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries The "at will" rule is alive and well in Oregon employment relationships, but exactly what does that mean? It means that the employer can sever the employment relationship at any time, as long as the reason...

Newspaper Workers Win Multi-Million-Dollar Judgment from Chinese Daily News for Wage and Hour Violations.
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Workers at the Chinese Daily News in Monterey Park, Calif., won a big victory as a federal jury awarded them a multi-million dollar judgment for the newspaper's willful violations of federal and state wage and hour laws. The jury verdict in...

A watershed term for federalism.
The Supreme Court's slim 5-4 majority continues to side with the cause of state authority even when it comes into direct conflict with federal authority. This was the year of the states in the Supreme Court. In a remarkable trio of rulings in late June, the justices...

Minimum sages.
ITEM: Democratic presidential candidates were asked by the Associated Press on January 29, "What increases, if any, do you favor in the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage?" An abbreviated summary of their responses follows: Wesley Clark "will raise" the minimum wage "in steps to $7 per hour by...

Increasing unemployment with minimum effort.
ITEM: "In an election year," said the Christian Science Monitor for June 22, "it's a dream issue for the Democrats: The Republican-controlled Congress has not raised the federal minimum wage in nine years, despite strong public support for an increase." To Democrats, reports the paper, "it boils down to...

Rewriting the terms: the contract clause and special-interest legislation in RUI One Corp. v. City Of Berkeley.
The City Council of Berkeley, California is well known for its energetic adherence to the left wing of American policy and politics. A ready example is its March 2004 determination that Congress should formally censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney; impeachment was the favored recommendation but was deemed...

Switching time and other thought experiments: the Hughes Court and constitutional transformation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1893 I. PRELUDE TO CRISIS 1898 A. The New Court 1898 B. The 1930 Term 1893 1. Regulation 1904 2. Taxation 1905 3. Civil Liberties 1907 C. Retrenchment? 1909 D. Thunderbolts 1914 1. Blaisdell 1914 2. Nebbia 1919 3. The Gold Clause Cases...

Wage hike!
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Senate recently upped the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour. The increase will take place over two years. The legislation also contained $8.3 billion in tax cuts for small businesses. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a minimum-wage bill that...

Sin of wages: living wages, killing restaurants.
BETWEEN ever-expanding "estimated" tax targets for tip income, draconian restaurant licensing restrictions, and proposals for menu labeling laws, you might think governments had already done their utmost to eliminate waiting tables for tips as a viable form of employment. But the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is, as always,...

Congress's deconstruction theory; how Congress is beating the low cost of construction.
Congress's Deconstruction Theory What if there were a way to build more low-income housing, invigorate the national economy, and help the small business owner, all in one shot? What if the stroke of a congressional pen would help rebuild the nation's crumbling bridges and highways even as it...