Labor and Employment Law in the Education Workplace

Catalog description

.This course, which meets once a week for two hours, will explore in depth labor and employment issues in the 21st century education workplace. Students will form teams -- representing individual employees, the union, and management- and advocate their respective positions in a variety of contexts, including collective bargaining, unfair labor practice proceedings, teacher discipline and dismissal proceedings, and contract grievance arbitration. Current events and contemporaneous developments will provide the backdrop for the course materials and class activities. Topics will include: tenure, reduction-in-force and seniority rights, and teacher accountability and evaluation of professional personnel under new education reform legislation; public sector bargaining trends in Illinois and nationally; the 2012 Chicago Public Schools teachers strike; LGBT issues, free speech, and workplace right of privacy.