Employment Law

Catalog description

This course is a survey of the principal laws that regulate the employment relationship outside the context of a collective bargaining agreement. The topics covered include the establishment of the employment relationship including employee versus independent contractor status and the “employment-at-will” doctrine; the hiring process; the employer’s right to establish terms and conditions of employment; wage and hour regulation; employee privacy in the workplace (grooming and dress issues, freedom of expression, regulation of off-work activity); termination of the employment relationship including restrictions on post-employment activity; and the role of alternative dispute resolution processes in resolving employment law disputes. Emphasis is placed on the distinctions between the rights of governmental versus private sector employees; the overlapping roles of statutes, personnel policy manuals, and individual employment contracts in regulating employment; and the erosion of the “at-will” employment doctrine.