2026--Shifting Workplace Law in an Era of Federal Vacuums: Business as Usual or Polycrisis?
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Description
The scaling back of federal administrative agencies currently being undertaken by the Trump administration carries broad implications for the practice, administration and enforcement of labor and employment law.
At the most fundamental level, the reality of 200,000 fewer federal employees creates a strong likelihood of much less frequent enforcement of federal labor and employment laws. And this drop-off in federal personnel comes amid judicial reconsideration of the constitutionality of the federal statutes and administrative agencies that animate the federal structure.
It is hard not to imagine that all of this rollback will produce federal vacuums. And because nature abhors vacuums these spaces are likely to be filled. Perhaps with state law. Perhaps with new amalgams of federal and state law that will replace the surprising and often underappreciated amalgams that have existed up to now.
Schedule
8:00 a.m. // Registration
9:00 a.m. // Opening Remarks
- Twinette Johnson, Dean, Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law
- Michael C. Duff, Professor of Law, Director of the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law, Saint Louis University School of Law
9:30 a.m. - 10::15 a.m. // Keynote by Michael Z. Green
"Life Without Worker Protection Laws"
10:15 a.m. - 10:25 a.m. // Break
10:25 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. // Panel 1: Federal & National Obstacles to Labor & Employment Enforcement
11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. // Lunch
1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. // Panel 2: Gaps, Opportunities & Obstacles to Local Employment Law Formation
2:30 p.m. - 2:40 p.m. // Break
2:40 p.m. - 4:05 p.m. // Panel 3: Worker Safety & Injury Complexity -- Hidden Federal/State Interplay
4:05 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. // Closing Remarks
Webinar Date
3-6-2026
Keywords
Shifting Workplace Law, Era, Federal Vacuums, Business, Usual, Polycrisis, Labor and Employment Law, Enforcement, Employment, Worker, Interplay
Disciplines
Labor and Employment Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Green, Michael Z.; Anderson, James "Jim" Esq.; Bruno, Robert; Cordic, Samra; Duff, Michael C.; Glahn, Richard von; Grant, Christopher N.; Hirsch, Jeffrey M.; Keim, Dave; Lee, Jennifer A.; Long, Justin R.; Martin, Janine; O'Keefe, Julie; and Racabi, Gali, "2026--Shifting Workplace Law in an Era of Federal Vacuums: Business as Usual or Polycrisis?" (2026). Law Journal Symposia: William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law. 4.
https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj_wefel_symposia/4