ED 711: Legal Perspectives & Labor

The following guide is intended to introduce students to the resources located within the Caldwell University Library system on collective bargaining for use in ED 711 Legal Perspectives and Labor Relations. 

This course examines labor relations and collective bargaining in the public sector and builds on the knowledge that students have gained in an educational law course. Analysis of major issues in public sector collective bargaining and current and historical legal issues with expertise of day-to-day operations within school districts will be addressed, namely:

• a) history of public sector bargaining;
• b) the legal, economic and social underpinnings of bargaining;
• c) the scope of bargaining;
• d) the administration of the collective negotiations agreement (also known as a collective bargaining agreement, or CBA);
• e) impasse mechanisms and
• f) the relationship between the public employer, the union, the individual employee and the public.

This course will address federal, state and local bargaining structures and while a multi-jurisdictional format will be used, emphasis will be placed upon statutes, institutions and practices that are relied upon in the state of New Jersey. The class will include a mock collective bargaining exercise and a mock grievance-arbitration exercise in which students will assume the roles of management and union representatives. 

Collective bargaining consists of negotiations between an employer and a group of employees so as to determine the conditions of employment. The result of collective bargaining procedures is a collective agreement. Employees are often represented in bargaining by a union or other labor organization. Collective bargaining is governed by federal and state statutory laws, administrative agency regulations, and judicial decisions. In areas where federal and state law overlap, state laws are preempted. See, U.S. Constitution, Art. VI.

(From the Legal Information Institute)

We would like to thank Julie Peters of the James Carey Library of the School of Management and Labor Relation at Rutgers University, who has kindly allowed us to reuse her excellent guide to collective bargaining resources.  This guide has been slightly modified to reflect the resources available within the Caldwell University Library