227.25 sec. 001 - California Employment Law (Fall 2025)
Instructor: Catherine Laura Fisk (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
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Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
MTu 11:20 AM - 12:35 PM
Location: TBA
From August 18, 2025
To December 01, 2025
Course End: December 01, 2025
Class Number: 33202
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 0
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 30
As of: 04/04 07:13 AM
California is a thought-leader in innovative employee-protective work law. This course will show why. We will study both the substantive protections and the complex California-specific procedures for enforcing rights. The substantive protections include common law and statutory regulation of hiring and termination; worker privacy, autonomy, and data; whistleblowing; rights to bargain collectively, and minimum standards for wages, benefits, and working conditions. The procedures include sectoral bargaining, state and local government agency enforcement, and novel approaches to remedies. The course will focus especially on the challenges of regulating work in the contemporary economy, structured as it is by systemic inequalities and transformed by globalization, outsourcing, and technology. Among the practical and policy issues we will cover are: How should minimum labor standards be defined and enforced in a world in which many jobs can be moved to lower-wage markets, and conditions are suppressed by segmentation of the labor market on the basis of employee status, race, gender, immigration status, or other forms of marginalization? How has California sought to achieve legal compliance in a world in which employers have lawyers to help them minimize labor costs and workers are rarely represented by counsel?
Exam Notes: (TH) Take-home Final Exam
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Exam Length: 8 hours
Course Category: Work Law
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Public Law and Policy
Social Justice and Public Interest
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Readers:
A reader will be used in this class.
Books:
Instructor has indicated that no books will be assigned.