Each year, the New York University Annual Conference on Labor calls on
outstanding scholars and practitioners in the field to come together to survey
and analyze new developments and trends in U.S. labor law and practice. This
volume reproduces the texts (updated and reworked by the authors) presented at
the 2007 Conference, the 60th in this venerable and highly influential series,
at which the theme was and#8220;Retaliation and Whistleblowersand#8221; .

There could not be a more timely exploration of this complex workplace issue.
The United States Supreme Court, in several pending cases and in the recent
landmark cases of Burlington Northern v. White and Garcetti v.
Ceballos, has turned its full attention to workplace retaliation claims.
States and municipalities also continue to struggle in laying out the scope of
permissible claims under state constitutional and statutory whistleblower
provisions and under the common law of wrongful discharge.

Among the new and significant issues considered in this volume are the
following:

• 
  new limits on the scope of the cause of action in the wake of Burlington
  Northern;
  


• 
  implied protection of employee activity under ADEA and the FLSA;
  


• 
  the scope of and#8220;protected activityand#8221; under and#167; 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act;
  
  


• 
  issues of privilege when investigation counsel are used to inform corporate
  decision-making;
  


• 
  state whistleblower laws and the expansion or preemption of common law
  protections under the common law tort of wrongful discharge;
  


• 
  NLRA protection of collective protests by non-union workers; and
  


• 
  potential expansion of the formal definition of and#8220;jobsand#8221; under
  Garcetti v. Ceballos to foreclose the first amendment avenue.
  

Besides papers by panelists at the Conference, ten other leading practitioners
and academics also provide commentary in this volume.

As always, this important annual publication offers definitive current
scholarship in its theme area of labor and employment law. As such, it will be
of inestimable value to practitioners, government officials, academics and
others interested in developments in U.S. employment and labor relations law
and practice.