The Top Ten Judicial Decisions Affecting Labor Relations in Public Education During the Decade of the 1990's: The Verdict of Quiescent Years

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2001

Publication Title

Journal of Law and Education

Keywords

labor relations, judicial decisions, labor law

Abstract

Was there ever a society so infatuated with the drawing up of lists? Whole forests have been destroyed so that we can avidly consume the latest "top ten" in every conceivable category from the "worst dressed" to the "best colleges." There can, of course, be objective bases for the construction of such lists as, for example, in the ratings of the greatest baseball batters of all time. But, when it comes to the identification of the most important judicial decisions in any field, subjectivity reigns supreme. While our designations may be informed by the number of times a particular case has been cited by other courts or analyzed in academic journals, such statistical elements do not do away with the need for judgment.So it is with a great deal of humility and trepidation that I propose my own list of the "top ten judicial hits" of the decade of the nineties--those likely to have the greatest impact upon labor relations in the future. If, as I believe, the reader will find little of earth shaking significance in these decisions, I would reply that, indeed, very little of transcendental importance has occurred in the development of the judicially created law affecting labor relations in public education systems. In the main, the decisions have refined or expanded upon precedent, but blazed no new trails.There were, of course, a number of significant labor law decisions of general applicability, but because the focus of this inquiry is public school labor relations I have limited my "short list" of candidates to those cases that arose at least in an educational context.

Volume

30

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