NEWS RELEASE
December 13, 2006
Thomas Jefferson Professor Co-Authors First Comprehensive Text on International and Comparative Employment Law
Authors Create Important New Survey Course
SAN DIEGO -- With the January 2007 release of The Global Workplace, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor Susan Bisom-Rapp and her four co-authors will have completed the long process of creating the first comprehensive law text on international and comparative employment law – and along with it – a new survey course. The book, which covers the national workplace laws of nine countries and examines labor and employment law regulation by the International Labor Organization and, under NAFTA, the European Union and Corporate Codes of Conduct, fills a significant gap in the existing law school curriculum.
“I have a feeling of elation,” said Professor Bisom-Rapp on the eve of publication. “It’s exciting, the project was challenging and it was no small task.”
Professor Bisom-Rapp worked with an international team of co-authors to create the text: Roger Blanpain, Professor at the Universities of Hasselt, Leuven, (Belgium) and Tilburg (The Netherlands); William R. Corbett, Frank L. Marist Professor of Law, Paul M. Herbert Law Center of Louisiana State University; Hilary K. Josephs, Professor of Law, College of Law, Syracuse University; and Michael J. Zimmer, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University.
“Interest in the transnational aspects of workplace law has grown as labor and employment lawyers increasingly encounter issues implicating the laws of other countries,” says Professor Bisom-Rapp. “Yet, until the publication of The Global Workplace, there has been no text available for law professors interested in presenting this complex and theoretically engaging subject to their students.”
Increasing economic integration among national economies, capital mobility and global production chains greatly complicate the achievement and maintenance of humane working conditions. The aim of the text is to provide future policymakers, employee advocates and concerned employers with a working knowledge of the tools available to them.
It was a very rewarding experience for Professor Bisom-Rapp to work with the other authors, even though she has not yet met Roger Blanpain and William Corbett face to face. “We formed excellent working relationships and close cyber friendships,” she said.
The Global Workplace text comes with a detailed teacher’s manual to assist professors in presenting the international and comparative employment law course. “The challenge was to create a course professors can adopt and use successfully,” according to Professor Bisom-Rapp. In addition to the law school market, the book is also appropriate for use in graduate or undergraduate schools of business or industrial relations, or law and society programs.
According to Professor Bisom-Rapp, the course has already been taught at several law schools using the not yet released text and teacher’s manual. “It’s road-tested,” she says. In March 2007, the University of Modena's Marco Biagi Foundation in Italy is taking inspiration from the book and holding a conference on the theme, The Global Workplace. Professor Bisom-Rapp is looking forward to speaking at the conference along with some of her co-authors.
The Global Workplace is being published by the Cambridge University Press (ISBN-13: 9780521847858 / ISBN 10: 0521847850) and has been taking orders for the book for the spring 2007 semester beginning in January.
To order your own Global Workplace Mug, please visit: http://www.cafepress.com/globalworkplace.121418439
EDITOR’S NOTE: Professor Bisom-Rapp will be available for interviews on The Global Workplace. To arrange one, please contact Thomas Jefferson School of Law Communications Specialist Chris Saunders at 619-297-9700 ext 1842 or at csaunders@tjsl.edu