Labor & Unions

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This week, the National Labor Relations Board finally came to its senses and adopted the contract coverage test for cases alleging an employer had unlawfully, unilaterally changed employees’ terms and conditions of employment. MV Transportation, Inc. 368 NLRB No. 66 (2019). This week’s decision is likely to change the forum unions select for the enforcement of their labor agreements. Ironically, the decision may compel employers to consider additional bargaining rather than litigation before an arbitrator given there is little opportunity to appeal an adverse arbitration award.
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As previously detailed here, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Epic Systems decision established that requiring employees to waive their right to pursue collective or class actions does not violate the National Labor Relations Act’s “catchall” protection—the right to engage in “concerted activity”—and courts must enforce arbitration agreements as written.

The Supreme Court not only confirmed the legality of class action waivers under the Federal Arbitration Act, but it also narrowly construed the NLRA’s catchall provision as focused on the right to organize unions and bargain collectively in the workplace.

The Court’s holding that the right to engage in such “concerted activities” does not guarantee collective or class action procedures underpins a recent NLRB decision concerning issues of first impression: imposing and requiring as a condition for continued employment a new class action waiver rule in response to collective action.

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In August, the National Labor Relations Board issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to address three rather limited situations involving employee representation issues. These proposed rules follow 70-plus years of experimentation with a hodgepodge of ad hoc one-off decisions, dramatic changes and frequent reversals in the process of enabling employees to exercise their rights under…

Chicago is the most recent city to adopt a “predictive scheduling” ordinance, the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance.

Effective July 1, 2020, employers subject to the Ordinance must provide advance notice of work schedules to covered employees. If changes are made to the posted schedule, employers must pay additional wages, “predictability pay,” as a penalty. This penalty applies to both increases and reductions of shifts.

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The NLRB recently determined that merely discrediting an employer’s justification for a union activist’s termination (a pretext finding) could be insufficient to demonstrate the termination was unlawful. Electrolux Home Products, 368 NLRB No. 34 (2019). This outcome was preordained by the NLRB’s decision in Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980) and was reinforced as an acceptable legal analysis by the Supreme Court in a decision under Title VII, St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 US 502 (1993). The logic of the rule found its voice in ABF Freight Systems v. NLRB, 510 US 317 (1994) in which the Court determined it was permissible for the NLRB to order the reinstatement of an employee even after the employee lied under oath during the NLRB hearing, as to do otherwise, would “distract the Board” with collateral credibility disputes.
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As of August 1, companies doing business in Mexico can anticipate that unions will move quickly to legitimize existing collective agreements under a new government-issued protocol. Among other steps, the process includes a vote by covered employees to determine whether they approve the terms of the agreement. Collective agreements must be legitimized by May 1,…

Historically employers could not restrict labor organizing activity in employer-owned, publicly accessible spaces. But, last month, in UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, 368 N.L.R.B. No. 2 (2019), the NLRB reversed nearly 40 years of precedent holding that employers violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) if they prohibit nonemployee labor organizers from publicly-accessible spaces.

Post UPMC, employers may adopt and implement neutral policies regulating the use of employer-owned spaces open to the public (such as cafeterias) and may lawfully apply those policies to exclude nonemployee union organizers. Employers with spaces open to the public should consider whether to adopt and enforce a content neutral (nondiscriminatory) bar to nonemployee solicitation or distribution in the publicly accessible spaces on their property.

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This article was originally published on Law360.com.

Three recent decisions arising under the National Labor Relations Act highlight that ambiguity and inattentiveness are the twin banes of labor and employment attorneys. In all three cases, the dispute arose because two personnel policies or approaches overlapped, opening the way for conflicting claims. As these cases demonstrate,…

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has updated the National Labor Relations Act rights poster that federal contractors and subcontractors are required to display under Executive Order 13496. The changes are minor, consisting of a new telephone number for the NLRB and hearing impaired contact information. But government contractors and subcontractors should replace their…