Doctoral Dissertation: Social Reform Through Legal Action: Mobilizing the Family and Medical Leave Act in the Workplace

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This project addresses the intersection of three areas of law and society research: legal consciousness and rights mobilization, law and competing norms, and law and social change. It examines, in the workplace context, the process through which workers think about and mobilized the legal rights specified in the Family and Medical Leave Act. It also examines investigate how beliefs about work, family commitments, disability and the law influence the process of mobilizing rights. The research addresses these questions: What is the process though which workers learn about and exercise their legal rights? How are beliefs about work, family responsibilities, disability and the law related to workers, decisions about claiming their rights, and their perceptions of conflict over leave? How do workers think about the law in relation to their disputes over leave? How do employees think about fairness and justice in workplace practices regarding leave? What determines employees' satisfaction with the outcomes of leave disputes? The PI conduct in-depth, qualitative interviews with approximately 40 employees who negotiated leaves without going to court. These interviews will contribute to the field by filling the gap between research about litigated disputes and research about individuals who did not assert their rights.