Management Memo

This past week, Doctor’s Associates Inc., which is the owner and franchisor for the Subway sandwich restaurant chain entered into a Voluntary Agreement (the “Agreement”) with the US Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division “as part of [Subway’s] broader efforts to make its franchised restaurants and overall business operations socially responsible,” and as part of Subway’s “effort to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards to protect and enhance the welfare” of Subway’s own workforce and that of its franchisees.

While the ...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board), which continues to apply an ever expanding standard for determining whether a company that contracts with another business to supply contract labor or services in support of its operations should be treated as a joint employer of the supplier or contractor’s employees, is now considering whether a company’s requirement that its suppliers and contractors comply with its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy, which includes minimum standards for the contractor or supplier’s practices with its own employees can ...

Featured on the new episode of Employment Law This Week: Employers must have specific waivers to make unilateral policy changes when bargaining with a union.

That's according to the NLRB, which once again clarified its "clear and unmistakable" waiver standard to restrict employers’ midterm changes. In this case, an employer relied on a broad management rights clause in its contract with the union to make unilateral changes to specific policies. The NLRB found that the union had not waived its right to bargain over those changes because the contract did not refer to the policies ...

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) has reversed the findings of an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) who found that an employee who was told he was fired and then almost instantly told by the owner of the company he worked for that he was not fired and continued to work without any loss of compensation or working time had in fact been unlawfully discharged in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the “Act”). It would seem that if “discharge is the ‘capital punishment’ of employment,” this case presents a rare example, in ...

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”), in its recent decision in Graymont PA, Inc., 364 NLRB No. 37 (June 29, 2016), has fired the latest salvo in its long running dispute with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concerning the issue of what legal standard should be applied when a union claims that an employer has made a unilateral change in terms and conditions of employment during the term of a collective bargaining agreement and the employer claims that the union waived its right to bargain over the topic in question in a ...

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) announced in its 3-1 decision in Miller & Anderson, 364 NLRB #39 (2016) that it will now conduct representation elections and require collective bargaining in single combined units composed of what it refers to as “solely employed employees” and “jointly employed employees,” meaning that two separate employers will be required to join together to bargain over such employees’ terms and conditions of employment.” To understand the significance of Miller & Anderson, one must consider the Board’s ...

On June 20, 2016, the United States Supreme Court granted a request by the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) to review a decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the Board’s former Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon served in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 3345, et seq. (“FVRA”) when he remained in that position after President Barack Obama nominated him to permanently fill the General Counsel role.

In June 2010, President Obama named Solomon as Acting General Counsel for the Board. Then, just ...

Today, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) controversial new Persuader Rule and its new Advice Exemption Interpretation, previously discussed here and here.  The Rule and Interpretation marked a dramatic change by requiring public financial disclosure reports concerning payments that employers make in connection with “indirect persuader activities” that were not reportable under the long standing rules, but that would, if the new rule were to take ...

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="98"] Steven M. Swirsky[/caption]

U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz “has found that aspects” of the Department of Labor’s Amended Persuader Rule “are likely invalid because they require reporting of advice that is exempt from disclosure under Section 203(c)” of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA).

The Amended Persuader Rule Makes Distinctions Between Materially Indistinguishable Activities

In his 34 page opinion denying the plaintiffs’ application for a temporary restraining order ...

Featured on Employment Law This Week: The NLRB reverses its mixed-guard unit recognition rule. If a union represents both security guards and other employee groups, then an employer’s decision to recognize the union is voluntary. Before this decision, employers could also withdraw their recognition if no collective bargaining agreement was reached.  Now, employers must continue to recognize the union unless and until the employees vote to decertify it in an NLRB election.

View the episode below or read more about this story in a previous blog post, written by Steven M ...