A field of law relating to, and arising from, the practice of the admiralty courts (tribunals that exercise jurisdiction over all contracts, torts, offenses, or injuries within maritime law) that regulates and settles special problems associated with sea navigation and commerce.
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The provision of the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress exclusive power over trade activities between the states and with foreign countries and Indian tribes.
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A combination of producers of any product joined together to control its production, sale, and price, so as to obtain a monopoly and restrict competition in any particular industry or commodity. Cartels exist primarily in Europe, being illegal in the United States by antitrust laws. Also, an association by agreement of companies or sections of companies having common interests, designed to prevent extreme or unfair competition and allocate markets, and to promote the interchange of knowledge resulting from scientific and technical research, exchange of patent rights, and standardization of products.
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The process through which a labor union and an employer negotiate the scope of the employment relationship.
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The constitutional guarantee that no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws that is enjoyed by other persons or other classes in like circumstances in their lives, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness.
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The taking of private property for public use or in the public interest. The taking of U.S. industry situated in a foreign country, by a foreign government.
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The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (24 Stat. 379 [49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.]) stands as a watershed law in the history of the federal regulation of business. Originally designed to prevent unfair business practices in the railroad industry, the act shifted responsibility for the regulation of economic affairs from the states to the national government. Among its many provisions, the act established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). The act has been amended over the years to embrace new and different forms of interstate transportation, including pipelines, water transportation, and motor vehicle transportation.
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The Jim Crow Laws emerged in southern states after the Civil War. First enacted in the 1880s by lawmakers bitter about their loss to the North and the end of slavery, the statutes separated the races in all walks of life. The resulting legislative barrier to equal rights created a racial caste system that favored whites and repressed blacks, an institutionalized form of inequality that grew in subsequent decades with help from the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the laws came under attack over the next half century, real progress against them did not begin until the Court began dismantling segregation in the 1950s. The remnants of the Jim Crow system were finally abolished in the 1960s through the efforts of the civil rights movement.
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An area of the law that deals with the rights of employers, employees, and labor organizations.
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An association, combination, or organization of employees who band together to secure favorable wages, improved working conditions, and better work hours, and to resolve grievances against employers.
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A three-person board created by federal statute to resolve disputes in the railroad and airline industries that could disrupt travel or imperil the economy. The board also handles railroad and airline employee representation disputes and provides administrative and financial support in adjusting minor grievances in the railroad industry.
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Legislation passed by Congress in 1862 (12 Stat. 489) that authorized the construction of the first transcontinental railway line connecting the east and west coasts.
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An 1896 decision by the Supreme Court, Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed. 256, upheld the constitutionality of an 1890 Louisiana statute requiring white and "colored" persons to be furnished "separate but equal" accommodations on railway passenger cars.
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A judicial standard of review that examines whether a legislature had a reasonable and not an arbitrary basis for enacting a particular statute.
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State laws permitted by section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act that provide in general that employees are not required to join a union as a condition of getting or retaining a job.
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