Management Memo

As we have previously reported, Unions currently face a serious existential threat as the unionized workforce in America continuously declines and the looming threat of a National Right to Work law steadily grows.  Recognizing that when employees have a choice, they are losing the battle for the hearts and minds, Unions have not taken these deleterious developments lying down and have deployed numerous countermeasures designed to increase their dues paying membership, including unprecedented forays into previously untouched industries and membership pools.  These efforts ...

In what may be a harbinger of good things to come, the NLRB recently reversed an Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) finding that Macy’s, Inc.’s confidentiality policies unlawfully interfered with employees’ Section 7 rights.  Unlike many employer policy decisions issued by the Board in recent years, this case does not break new ground or saddle employers with new, unrealistic onuses.  It merely reinforces well-established rules regarding the use of sensitive customer information obtained from an employer’s records and actually reaffirms the right of ...

In Midwest Division-MMC, LLC, d/b/a/ Menorah Medical Center v. NLRB, the D.C. Circuit rejected the Board’s unprecedented application of Weingarten rights to voluntary meetings, by reversing the Board's Decision that would have extended the right of employees to have union representation at meetings at which the employees’ attendance is not compelled.

Kansas state law requires hospitals to establish an internal mechanism to monitor the standard of care provided by nursing professionals.  Pursuant to this law, Menorah Medical Center (“Menorah” or ...

The DC Circuit Court, in its August 11th decision in Rhino Northwest, LLC v NLRB has found that the NLRB’s 2011 Specialty Healthcare decision revisiting the Board’s standards for determining whether a bargaining unit a union seeks to represent is appropriate, where the employer claims in excludes other classifications of employees who share a community of interest with the petitioned for employees, is supported by the National Labor Relations Act and that the “overwhelming community of interest” standard that the Board adopted in that case is entitled to deference and ...

When: Thursday, September 14, 2017 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Where: New York Hilton Midtown, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019

Epstein Becker Green’s Annual Workforce Management Briefing will focus on the latest developments in labor and employment law, including:

• Immigration
• Global Executive Compensation
• Artificial Intelligence
• Internal Cyber Threats
• Pay Equity
• People Analytics in Hiring
• Gig Economy
• Wage and Hour
• Paid and Unpaid Leave
• Trade Secret Misappropriation
• Ethics

We will start the day with two morning Plenary Sessions. The first session is kicked off ...

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Marvin Kaplan, a former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission lawyer, to fill one of the two open seats on the National Labor Relations Board, moving the agency a step closer to a Republican majority. Kaplan was confirmed on a 50-48 party-line vote by the GOP-controlled Senate.

The Senate has yet to schedule a vote for President Trump’s second nominee for the Board, William Emanuel, a long time management-side labor and employment lawyer. The Senate is expected to vote for cloture on Emanuel’s nomination after the August recess ...

Since the National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB” or the “Board”) 2015 decision in Browning-Ferris Industries, 362 NLRB No. 186, in which it adopted a new, far less stringent test for determining joint-employer status under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”),  employers have been left wondering whether they may be held to be a joint employer of temporary or contract workers that they retain through staffing and temporary agencies.

These concerns have been echoed by employers in other contexts as other agencies, such as the United States Department of ...

On Tuesday night, the President announced the nomination of William Emanuel, a long time management-side labor employment lawyer, to fill the last remaining vacancy on the five-member National Labor Relations Board.

As we noted in our earlier blog, last week the President announced the nomination of Marvin Kaplan, who currently serves as counsel at the Occupational Safety and Health Commission, to fill the other vacancy on the NLRB.

If the nominations of Messrs. Emanuel and Kaplan are confirmed by the Senate, which seems likely as of now, the NLRB will not only have its first ...

The President earlier this week announced the nomination of Marvin Kaplan, who currently serves as counsel at the Occupational Safety and Health Commission, to serve as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board. Mr. Kaplan is a Republican and once confirmed, his taking a seat on the Board will be an important step in the move towards a more employer-friendly Republican majority that can be expected to reconsider many of the decisions of the Democratic majority Obama Board. Mr. Kaplan’s nomination is for the seat most recently held by Member Harry Johnson, and will be for a full ...

On June 7, 2017, in RHCG Safety Corp. and Construction & General Building Laborers, Local 79, LIUNA, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) rejected an employer’s contention that “a text message cannot be found to constitute an unlawful interrogation” and found that a coercive text message, just like a coercive face-to-face meeting or a coercive phone call, could serve as evidence that the employer had unlawfully threatened or interrogated employees concerning their union support or activity in violation of the National Labor Relations Act ...