Prominent practitioners representing employees, employers, unions and government agencies as well as neutrals, in-house counsel and academics from across the country will share their expertise on a broad range of issues during the 16th Annual Labor and Employment Law Conference presented by the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law, November 9-12 in Washington, D.C.
Various sessions will examine recent Supreme Court decisions and explore hot-button issues with top enforcers from the National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice as well as topics on a multitude of tracks, ranging from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to Workplace Problems and Solutions.
Highlights include:
• “Meet the National Labor Relations Board” — Hear from the NLRB chairman and members of the Biden board – including Lauren McFerran, John F. Ring, Marvin E. Kaplan, Gwynne A. Wilcox and David M. Prouty, all of Washington, D.C., as they discuss insights on decisions from the past year, as well as agency initiatives and developments since their panel last year.
• “Being the ‘First’: A Candid Discussion with Trailblazers in the Legal Profession and Beyond” — This roundtable will feature ABA Past President Paulette Brown, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda, National Labor Relations Board Member Gwynne A. Wilcox and U.S. Merit Systems Pension Board Acting Chair Cathy Harris.
• “Meet the Enforcers” — High-level regulators, including Jennifer Abruzzo, National Labor Relations Board; Charlotte A. Burrows, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Seema Nanda, U.S. Department of Labor; and Kristen Clarke, U.S. Department of Justice, all of Washington, D.C., will discuss a broad range of issues at the top of their regulatory agendas, including COVID-19, artificial intelligence in hiring and discipline, pay equity, worker misclassification and LGBTQ+ rights.
• “Roe v. Wade Overturned: A Morass of Employment Considerations Created by Dobbs. v. Women’s Health Organization” — This panel will delve into the myriad questions and considerations regarding the rights and benefits of workers and potential employer criminal liability related to reproductive health care. They will examine the challenges faced by employers seeking to support their employees’ efforts to secure abortion health care and related services both in and out of benefit plans.
• “Employment Rights Litigation in a Unionized Workplace” — Employment rights litigation may proceed somewhat differently when the workplace is governed by a collective bargaining agreement. A panel of experts will ask and answer: Are the employees’ claims preempted by the collective bargaining agreement? Should the employees file a lawsuit, or request that the union file a grievance, or both? Who is the proper defendant—the employer, the union or both?
• “Exploring the Limits of Electronic Surveillance of the Workplace” — Employee surveillance technology has exploded over the last several decades. Methods for monitoring workers—both inside and outside the workplace—run the gambit from traditional audio and video collection in workplace settings of all times, to cell tower monitoring, to keystroke analysis, social media “friending” by supervisors and to the collection and analysis of employee metadata. An expert panel will consider the legality, utility and best practices from employer, union and employee perspectives and, in doing so, will address the law of surveillance and employee privacy from the perspective of several distinct but intertwined areas of law, stemming from the National Labor Relations Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, state laws and the guidance of the Federal Trade Commission.
The ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law has more than 12,000 members who represent all perspectives of labor and employment law: management, union, plaintiff, neutral and public. The section is committed to a balanced discussion of labor and employment law issues throughout the world. For additional information on the conference, visit www.americanbar.org/groups/labor_law/events_cle/lel-conference16.
