Sometimes common sense is not so common. By a Memorandum dated January 31, 2017, the General Counsel of the NLRB has taken the position that student athletes at private colleges and universities are employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, notwithstanding the Board’s issuance of its decision of Northwestern University in 2015
Mandatory Employee Arbitration Split To Be Heard By Supreme Court
Earlier this month the United States Supreme Court decided to hear three cases which will resolve the split between various Courts of Appeals (discussed in our prior post here) as to whether individual arbitration agreements barring class arbitration actions in employment-related matters are enforceable. While the Court held in 2011 that the Federal Arbitration Act would allow companies to avoid consumer class actions by insisting upon individual arbitrations in their contracts, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, workers have contended that employment contracts are different. They have successfully argued that the National Labor Relations Act prohibits class waivers since it would impinge upon worker’s rights to engage in “concerted activities”. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals accepted such an argument in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (discussed in our prior post here), and the Ninth Circuit accepted such an argument in Ernst and Young v. Morris. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the same argument in National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil U.S.A.
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NLRB Plans to Push for Protection of Partial Strikes
On October 3, the National Labor and Relations Board (NRLB) Office of the General Counsel (OGC) issued a Memorandum from the Division of Operations-Management to all Regional Directors, Officers-In-Charge, and Resident Officers. This Memo (Memorandum OM 17-02) reveals an aggressive new position from the OGC, one which attempts to overturn decades of Board precedent.
For
Weingarten Confusion
In most situations the NLRB’s long established Weingarten doctrine can be applied in a fairly straight-forward fashion. But I still get questions regarding the interplay of drug and alcohol testing when it comes to Weingarten. This is probably due to the fact that the Ralphs Grocery Company decision, which issued in 2014, is a
Nerds Win, Jocks Lose
Once again I shake my head at the NLRB’s analysis in their application of the National Labor Relations Act. In the high profile Northwestern University case which issued in August of last year, the Board found that it would not assert jurisdiction over the grant-in-aid scholarship football players of Northwestern University, citing in particular the
NLRB General Counsel Blocks Longstanding Process to Facilitate Settlement in NLRB Proceedings
An order, dated February 19, 2016, by the Board granted special permission to appeal and invited briefs over the issue of whether or not they will continue to permit Administrative Law Judges to issue orders granting settlement terms proposed by a respondent, to which no other party has agreed to, over the objections of
Eighth Circuit Supports the NLRB’s Specialty Healthcare Decision
The Eighth Circuit became another notch in the belt of the NLRB in support of its position as set forth in Specialty Healthcare with the issuance of FedEx Freight, Inc. v. NLRB. The facts are fairly straightforward and are typical for a representation proceeding in that the employer wanted to expand the bargaining unit
NLRB Successful in Obtaining Subpoena Enforcement as to Joint Employer Issue in McDonalds Franchise Dispute
Many of us have been watching the ongoing battle taking place in Region 2 of the NLRB as to the consolidated unfair labor practice proceedings that are taking place with respect to McDonalds and various McDonalds’ franchisees. The hearing that was originally scheduled to begin on March 30th of this year has been postponed
And Around And Around We Go
In the NLRB’s never ending expansion of its jurisdiction, it has agreed to reconsider whether graduate teaching assistants at private non-profit universities are entitled to collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act. As anyone who has been involved in education labor law for any period of time knows, the Board has gone back and
Joint Employer Relationship . . . Not This Time
In the first reported decision since the Board’s holding in Browning-Ferris, the Regional Director for Region 5 of the NLRB found that, with respect to the particular facts in a case before that Region, the union failed to establish a joint employer relationship. The case arose in the context of a staffing agency, GJW