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Showing posts for: Labor Relations

Mar 11 2024
Labor RelationsUncategorized

Court extends effective date of joint employer rule to 3/11/24

              A federal district court in Texas recently delayed the effective date of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s revised joint employer rule until March 11, 2024. The new rule was originally scheduled to take effect on December 26, 2023, but we previously reported that the Board later delayed the…

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Mar 08 2024
Labor Relations

Don’t unilaterally stop dues checkoff when CBA expires

Employers can no longer unilaterally stop collecting union dues when a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expires, ruled the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals. Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a union-represented employee can agree to allow their employer to deduct and remit union dues. In a case involving hospital employees, the CBA between the…

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Jan 29 2024
Labor RelationsTermination & ResignationWage and Hour

Q&A: Employees can discuss wages with each other

Question: Two of our employees accessed confidential payroll files and now are loudly complaining they are the lowest-paid employees in the company. Their manager is upset and wants to fire them for breach of trust, disrupting our business operations, and hurting morale. The whole department is demanding a raise. What can we do here? Answer:…

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Nov 02 2023
Employee ClassificationsLabor RelationsWage and Hour

NLRB expands interpretation of joint employment

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently issued a new regulation that broadly designates separate companies as joint employers for purposes of having a duty to comply with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The rule affects potential joint employment relationships such as client employers and their staffing agencies, or franchisors and their franchisees, or…

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Oct 05 2023
Labor Relations

NLRB issues rules to speed pace of union elections

As expected, the National Labor Relations Board has issued “quickie election” rules—new regulations that will likely shorten the amount of time between a union’s petition for an election and the date of the election itself. The changes apply to representation petitions filed on or after December 26, 2023 (88 Fed Reg 58076, August 25, 2023)….

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Sep 21 2023
Drug and AlcoholLabor Relations

Q&A: Notify union of pending changes to drug testing policy

Question: We’re changing our drug testing policy to remove marijuana from the applicant drug panel. We might do some other language clean-up while we’re doing so. Because the substantive change involves applicants, we don’t have to notify the union, right? Answer: Wrong…only because you said you’re doing other “clean-up.” What you consider to be minor…

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Sep 07 2023
Labor Relations

NLRB decision makes union organizing easier

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) now requires employers to quickly file any challenges to a union’s demand for recognition, and if an employer commits an unfair labor practice (ULP) that would justify setting aside an election result in the employer’s favor, the Board will require the employer to proceed straight to bargaining with the…

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Sep 07 2023
Labor RelationsQ&ATermination & Resignation

Q&A: Do employees have a right to talk with customers about pay

Question: One of our customer service employees recently contacted a customer to enlist support for higher pay for themselves and coworkers. Can we discipline or terminate them for this conduct? Answer: Probably not. You cannot terminate a nonmanagement employee for engaging in a protected “concerted” (group) activity under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations…

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Jul 06 2023
Labor Relations

NLRB returns to multi-factor test for independent contractor status

The National Labor Relations Board has returned to its traditional multi-factor test for determining independent contractor status, overruling its own 2019 decision that had focused mainly on the worker’s entrepreneurial opportunity (The Atlanta Opera, Inc., NLRB, June 2023). This test is important to properly classify workers because independent contractors are excluded from the organizing rights…

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Jun 15 2023
Labor Relations

Supreme Court says employer can sue union for damaging product

On June 1, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Washington concrete company could sue a union in state court for destroying its product when the union called a strike as soon as the company’s trucks were loaded with wet concrete and dispatched to deliver it. At least 16 drivers reversed course and returned…

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May 18 2023
Labor RelationsQ&ASafety and Health

Q&A: Insubordination may be protected under NLRA

Question: One of our employees yelled at our plant manager during a team meeting and called the manager “the devil incarnate,” said that the manager “must enjoy torturing the crew,” and that “working here was a living hell.” He was complaining because the manager was requiring mandatory overtime during the most recent heatwave. We follow…

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Apr 06 2023
Labor RelationsWage and Hour

NLRB general counsel weighs in on severance agreements

On March 22, 2023, the general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board issued an internal staff memo explaining how to apply the Board’s recent decision that the confidentiality and nondisparagement provisions in an employer’s severance agreements violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The general counsel is the agency’s top enforcement lawyer, who approves…

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