The Fifteenth Edition makes a number of significant changes in its predecessor edition, published in 2006.
In the past five years, the law relating to employers, employees and unions has evolved, in part because of developments in the workplace that reflect changes in the U.S. economy, and in part because of the dramatic departures from precedent on the part of the National Labor Relations Board as appointed by President George W.
Bush. The Obama-appointed NLRB will, by the publication date of the fifteenth edition, have addressed many of these departures and will have in turn reshaped the law within its administrative powers.
The Republican-led House of Representatives has already signaled its intention to restrain this administrative change.
These political and economic developments since the earlier edition are reflected in the inclusion of new major cases--from the U.S.
Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals and the National Labor Relations Board.
State legislatures have also become more assertive in regulating the workplace, and this has raised important questions of federal preemption of state law, another area reflected in new material in the fifteenth edition. At the same time as the fifteenth edition is taking up these evolving issues of Labor Law, it will be significantly shorter in length than the fourteenth edition; after thorough review and revision, the new edition has fewer than 1100 pages (a reduction of some 300 pages, taking account of the current Supplement).
This has been done principally by removing some cases altogether, replacing some cases with newer ones, and re-editing many cases with a view toward greater compression.
A hallmark of the predecessor editions of this casebook has been the pointed and stimulating questions for classroom discussion, designed to test the students' understanding of particular cases and their underlying analysis, and the students' ability to assess the reach of those cases in new factual situations.
Every problem in the fourteenth edition has been reevaluated for the fifteenth, resulting in the deletion of many, the revision of others, and the insertion of new ones.
Moreover, textual notes have been revised throughout the casebook in order to deal with current issues.
A set of PowerPoint Slides For Class Discussion to accompany Labor Law, Cases and Materials, 15th Edition, prepared by Laura J. Cooper (The J. Stewart and Mario Thomas McClendon Professor in Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution, University of Minnesota), is now available in CD format on a complimentary basis to professors who have adopted the casebook.
This collection of 600 slides offers many opportunities to enhance discussion of cases and problems in the casebook.
Slides include such materials as charts and diagrams of facts from the cases, outlines to introduce new topics, charts synthesizing and contrasting legal doctrines, explanatory timelines, and a variety of other supplementary information including NLRB statistical information and highlights of relevant law review articles.
Additional slides replicate statutory text and problems in the book to help focus student attention.
The slides also offer additional hypotheticals for discussion.
For more information and additional teaching materials, visit the companion site .
