Joseph E. Slater

Distinguished University Professor and Eugene N. Balk Professor of Law and Values

Office: LC 2002C
Campus Phone: 419.530.2008; Fax: 419.530.7911
Email: Joseph.Slater@utoledo.edu

Professor Joseph E. Slater, Distinguished University Professor and Eugene N. Balk Professor of Law and Values, has been a faculty member since 1999, and is a graduate of Georgetown University (Ph.D.), the University of Michigan Law School (J.D.), and Oberlin College (B.A.). Before joining the faculty, he practiced in Washington, D.C. for over a decade.

Professor Slater's CV

Teaching

Classes taught: Torts, Evidence, Labor Law, Employment Law, Public-Sector Labor Law, and Employment Discrimination.

OTHER CURRENT EMPLOYMENT

Member, Federal Service Impasses Panel, Federal Labor Relations Authority, 2021-present. Appointed by President Biden.

Academic awards

Paul Stephen Miller Memorial Award for Outstanding Academic and Public Contributions to the Field of Labor and Employment Law Scholarship, 2018
Named Distinguished University Professor, 2018
University Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award, 2016
University Presidential Research Award, 2012
University Student Impact Award, 2012
University Outstanding Teaching Award, 2008
Made Eugene N. Balk Professor of Law and Values, 2007
Voted Outstanding Professor of the Year by the Law School Class of 2006
Voted Professor of the Year in 2001 by the Black Law Students Association

Publications

"Police Unions and Public-Sector Labor Law and Policy,” in Frederick Gooding, Jr. and Eric Yellin, eds., Public Workers in Service of America (University of Illinois Press, 2023).

PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT: CASES AND MATERIALS (West Publishing, 4th ed., 2021), TEACHER’S MANUAL, and yearly SUMMER UPDATES for this casebook (with Marty Malin, Ann Hodges, Jeffrey Hirsch, Anne Lofaso, and Michael Oswalt).

MODERN LABOR LAW IN THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTORS: CASES AND MATERIALS (Carolina Academic Press, 3rd ed. 2020), TEACHERS MANUAL, STATUTORY SUPPLEMENT, and yearly SUMMER UPDATES for this casebook.

Book Review, THE FALL OF WISCONSIN: THE CONSERVATIVE CONQUEST OF A PROGRESSIVE BASTION AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN POLITICS (2018), by Dan Kaufman 17 Labor: Studies in Working-Class History (Vol. 3) 140 (2020).

Congressional Testimony: House Committee on Education and Labor Hearing, “Standing With Public Servants: Protecting the Right to Organize,” https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3439645 (2019).

“The Teachers’ Strikes of 2018 in Historical Perspective,” 20 MARQUETTE BENEFITS AND SOCIAL WELFARE LAW REVIEW 191 (2019).

“Some Problems With NLRA Coverage: Independent Contractors and Joint Employers,” in RICHARD BALES & CHARLOTTE GARDEN, EDS., THE CAMBRIDGE HANDBOOK OF U.S. LABOR LAW: REVIVING AMERICAN LABOR FOR A 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY (Cambridge University Press 2019).

“Strikes of Employees in Essential Services in the U.S.A.” in MOTI MIRONI AND MONIKA SCHLACHTER, EDS., REGULATING STRIKES IN ESSENTIAL SERVICES – A COMPARATIVE LAW IN ACTION PERSPECTIVE (Walters-Kluwer, 2018).

“Janus: Damaging Labor,” JURIST blog, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2018/06/joseph-slater-impact-janus/

“Comments on the Restatement (Third) of Employment Law, Chapter 1” (with Charlotte Garden), 21 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS AND EMPLOYMENT POLICY JOURNAL 265 (2017).

“Will Labor Law Prompt Conservative Justices to Adopt a Radical Theory of State Action?” 96 NEBRASKA L.REV. 62 (2017).

“The National Labor Relations Act,” in ROBERT RYCROFT, ED., THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS: AN ECONOMIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PROGRESS AND POVERTY (VOL. 2) (2017).

MODERN LABOR LAW IN THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTORS: CASES AND MATERIALS (Carolina Academic Press, 2nd ed., 2016), TEACHERS MANUAL, STATUTORY SUPPLEMENT, and yearly SUMMER UPDATES for this casebook (with Seth Harris, Anne Lofaso, and Charlotte Garden).

Review essay, “JEFFREY KAHANA, THE UNFOLDING OF LABOR LAW: JUDGES, WORKERS AND PUBLIC POLICY ACROSS TWO POLITICAL GENERATIONS, 1790-1850 (2014), 10 NYU JOURNAL OF LAW & LIBERTY 404 (2016).

MASTERING LABOR LAW (with Paul Secunda, Jeffrey Hirsch, and Anne Lofaso) (Carolina Academic Press, 2014).

“Teaching Private-Sector Labor Law and Public-Sector Labor Law Together,” 58 ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 209 (2013).

“Public Sector Bargaining: Tumultuous Times” (with Robert Hebdon and Marick Masters), in COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UNDER DURESS: CASE STUDIES OF MAJOR NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRIES (HOWARD STRANGER, PAUL CLARK, AND ANN FROST, EDS., 2013).

“Attacks on Public-Sector Bargaining as Attacks on Employee Voice: A (Partial) Defense of the Wagner Act Model,” 50 OSGOODE HALL LAW JOURNAL 875 (2013).

“The Strangely Unsettled State of Public-Sector Labor Law in the Past Thirty Years,” 30 HOFSTRA LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW JOURNAL 511 (2013).

“Are Public-Sector Employees ‘Overpaid’ Relative to Private-Sector Employees? An Overview of the Studies” (with Elijah Welenc), 52 WASHBURN LAW JOURNAL 533 (2013), reprinted in MICHAEL GREEN AND SAMUEL ESTREICHER, EDS., THE CHALLENGE FOR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 65TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON LABOR (LexisNexis 2013).

“Public Sector Bargaining Impasse Dispute Procedures as ADR: From 1919 to the Present,” 28 OHIO STATE JOURNAL ON DISPUTE RESOLUTION 387 (2013).

“The Rise and Fall of SB-5 in Political and Historical Context,” 43 UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO LAW REVIEW 473 (2012).

“Public Sector Labor in the Age of Obama,” 87 INDIANA LAW JOURNAL 189 (2012).

“Employee Voice: Lessons from the Public Sector,” 94 MARQUETTE LAW REVIEW 917 (2011).

“The Assault on Public Sector Collective Bargaining: Real Harms and Imaginary Benefits,” American Constitution Society for Law and Policy Issue Brief (June 2011), available at http://www.acslaw.org/sites/default/files/Slater_Collective_Bargaining.pdf and in 5 ADVANCE (The Journal of the American Constitution Society Issue Groups) 58 (2011).

Essay, “Public Sector Labor in 2010: View of a Legal Historian,” Labor and Working Class History Association Newsletter (Spring 2010).

Book Review, John F. Lyons, Teachers and Reform: Chicago Public Education 1929-70, 114 AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 783 (2009).

“Working Group on Chapter 1 of the Proposed Restatement of Employment Law: Existence of Employment Relationship,” 13 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS AND EMPLOYMENT POLICY JOURNAL 43 (2009) (with Theodore St. Antoine, Dennis Nolan, and Alvin Goldman).

“Labor and the Boston Police Strike of 1919,” in Aaron Brenner, Benjamin Day, Immanuel Ness, eds., THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF STRIKES IN AMERICAN HISTORY (M.E. Sharpe, 2009).

Book Review: James B. Jacobs, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement, 26 LAW AND HISTORY REVIEW 224 (2008).

PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT: CASES AND MATERIALS, 2007 Professors’ Update (with Professors Martin Malin and Ann Hodges).

Book Review: Dennis Gaffney, Teachers United: The Rise of New York State United Teachers, 94 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY 1011 (2007).

“The ‘American Rule’ that Swallows the Exceptions,” 11 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS AND EMPLOYMENT POLICY JOURNAL 53 (2007).

“The History of Public Workers,” essay in THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF U.S. LABOR & WORKING-CLASS HISTORY, Eric Arnesen, Bruce Laurie, Joe McCartin, Cindy Hahamovitch, Tera Hunter, and Leon Fink, eds. (2006).

“Do Unions Representing A Minority of Employees Have the Right To Bargain Collectively?: A Review of Charles Morris, The Blue Eagle at Work,” 9 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS AND EMPLOYMENT POLICY JOURNAL 383 (2005).

“Homeland Security vs. Workers’ Rights? What the Federal Government Should Learn from History and Experience, and Why,” 6 PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL OF LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW 295 (2004), reprinted in SAMUEL ESTREICHER AND MATTHEW BODIE, EDS., WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION, PRIVACY, AND SECURITY IN AN AGE OF TERRORISM: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 55TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON LABOR (Kluwer Law Int’l, 2007).

PUBLIC WORKERS: GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE UNIONS, THE LAW, AND THE STATE, 1900-62 (Cornell University Press, 2004).

“The Court Does Not Know ‘What a Labor Union is’: How State Structures and Judicial (Mis)Constructions Deformed Public Sector Labor Law,” 79 OREGON LAW REVIEW 981 (2000).

“Petting the Infamous Yellow Dog: The Seattle High School Teachers Union and the State, 1928-31,” 23 SEATTLE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 485 (2000).

“Public Workers: Labor and the Boston Police Strike of 1919,” 38 LABOR HISTORY 7 (1997).

“The Rise of Master-Servant and the Fall of Master Narrative: A Review of Labor Law In America,” 15 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOR LAW 141 (1994).

“Policing Your Paycheck: Wage & Hour Law for Cops,” 1 Police Union Quarterly 113 (1989).

Organizations, Positions, Grants, and Legal Work

Beginning in 2023, Member of the Fellows of the American Bar Association, an invitation-only global honorary society of those in the legal provision whose careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the highest principles of the legal profession (limited to 1% of licensed attorneys).

Beginning 2021, Member, Federal Services Impasses Panel, Federal Labor Relations Authority.

Testified before Congress, June 2019, “Standing With Public Servants: Protecting the Right to Organize.” Hearing on the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act and the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act. Hearing available at: https://edlabor.house.gov/media/videos/watch/standing-with-public-servants-protecting-the-right-to-organize-eventid-109711?fbclid=IwAR0i6UUGglXywQQoPzHrbUsrF_j9qVQCazITioXLjwZsijDq0NSYit1Br3w

2014-present, member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, an invitation-only group of practitioners and scholars, promoting achievement, advancement and excellence in the practice of labor and employment law.

2011-present, member of the Employment Policy Research Network, an invitation-only group of scholars specializing in labor and employment relations, affiliated with the Labor and Employment Research Association.

Yearly contributor to online journal Jotwell (Journal of Things We Like a Lot) (reviewing labor and employment law articles and books).

2007-present, member of the Labor Law Group, an invitation-only organization of law professors dedicated to producing quality scholarship and teaching materials on labor and employment law.

Expert witness on the history of labor law in Wisconsin Educ. Ass’n Council v. Walker, 824 F.Supp.2d 856 (W.D.Wisc., 2012); Springfield Nat’l Educ. Ass’n v. Springfield Bd. of Educ., Case No. 0931-CV08322 (Cir.Ct. Greene Cty, MO 2009) and Bayless Educ. Ass’n v. Bayless School District, No. 09SL-CC1481 (Cir.Ct. St. Louis Cty, MO, Feb. 10, 2010).

Executive Board member, Labor and Employment Relations Association Section on Labor and Employment Law, 2009-2010.

Outside peer reviewer of book manuscripts for Cambridge University Press, New York University Press, University of Michigan Press, and University of Pennsylvania Press; outside peer reviewer of articles for Law and History Review, Labor History, Law & Society Review, and Labor Studies Journal.

Arbitrator for Toledo Federation of Teachers / Toledo Public Schools.

Editorial board member for the journal Labor History, beginning in 2003.

Chair, American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Employment Discrimination Section, 2004, Chair-elect, 2003, and Executive Board Member, 2002 and 2006.

Fellow, Willard Hurst Legal History Institute, University of Wisconsin Law School, June 2001, Madison, Wisconsin. This two-week program had more than 100 applicants and 11 Fellows.

Awarded the Albert Shanker Educational Research Fellowship from the Walter Reuther Labor Archives, Wayne State University, July 2001.

College of Law