Management Memo

Updated, 12/12/14 — In its Purple Communications, Inc., decision, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) has ruled that “employee use of email for statutorily protected communications on nonworking time must presumptively be permitted” by employers that provide employees with access to email at work.  While the majority in Purple Communications characterized the decision as “carefully limited,” in reality, it appears to be a major game changer.  This decision applies to all employers, not only those that have union-represented employees ...

Regarding the Supreme Court’s Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk opinion, issued yesterday, our colleague Michael Kun at Epstein Becker Green has posted “Supreme Court Holds That Time Spent in Security Screening Is Not Compensable Time” on one of our sister blogs, Wage & Hour Defense.

Following is an excerpt:

In order to prevent employee theft, some employers require their employees to undergo security screenings before leaving the employers’ facilities. That is particularly so with employers involved in manufacturing and retail sales, who must be concerned with ...

Our colleague Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker Green posted “DC Circuit Stays Halbig Action Pending SCOTUS Review of King, Upholds Accommodation for Contraceptive Coverage” on the Health Law Advisor blog. Following is the full text:

Only last week, we informed you of the Supreme Court’s somewhat surprising grant of cert. in the Fourth Circuit case of King v. Burwell, in which the court of appeals had upheld the government’s view that the Affordable Care Act makes federal premium tax credits available to taxpayers in all states, even where the federal government, not the ...

WHEN: November 17, 2014

TIME:    2:00pm – 3:30pm EST

To register for this webinar, please click here.

Please join us for a complimentary webinar addressing the professional and business challenges encountered by health care providers dealing with Ebola and other infectious diseases. This webinar will offer a clinical overview as well as a review of the guidelines which offer protocols for addressing concerns over Ebola and similar diseases, the health regulatory and risk management issues providers might consider in developing a response strategy, and the resulting labor and ...

By Stuart M. Gerson

While by most accounts the current term of the Supreme Court is generally uninteresting, lacking anything that the popular media deem to be a blockbuster (the media’s choice being same-sex marriage or Affordable Care Act cases), the docket is heavily weighted towards labor and employment cases that potentially affect employers in all industries including  retail, health care, financial services, hospitality, and manufacturing.  In chronological order of argument they are as follows.

The Court already has heard argument in Integrity Staffing Solutions ...

By Jill Barbarino

On October 28 a three-member majority of the National Labor Relations Board in Murphy Oil U.S.A., Inc.  revisited and reaffirmed its position that employers violate the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”) by requiring employees covered by the Act (virtually all nonsupervisory and non-managerial employees of most private sector employees, whether unionized or not) to waive, as a condition of their employment, participation in class or collective actions.

As previously reported in an Act Now Advisory, in 2012 the NLRB held in D.R. Horton that the home ...

By Maxine Neuhauser

For retail and hospitality industries especially,  it is turning out to be a long, hot summer as franchises continue to be in the employment law spotlight.

On July 29, 2014 the NLRB’s General Counsel announced a decision to treat McDonald’s, USA, LLC as a joint employer, along with its franchisees, of workers  43 McDonald’s franchised restaurants with regard to unfair labor practices charges filed by unions on behalf of the workers and authorized charges against of both the franchisees and McDonalds. (See our July 30 blog post  and Aug. 14 blog ...

By Ian Gabriel Nanos

We have written about it before but a recent NLRB decision is yet another example of the NLRB’s expanding and expansive view of what constitutes protected, concerted activities, and is therefore protected under the National Labor Relations Act.  In Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Mkt, the NLRB (Chairman Pearce and Members Hirozawa and Schiffer) found that an employee engaged in protected, concerted activity when the employee spoke to co-workers about a single act of sexual harassment that was “seemingly directed at [the employee ...

By Peter M. Panken, Steven M. Swirsky, and Adam C. Abrahms

In May, we cautioned employers that the NLRB would be increasing its aggressive pursuit of injunctions under Section 10(j) of the Act to pressure employers in a range of unfair labor practice cases.  The Board’s aggression and apparent overreach is clearly revealed in one recent case in which the Board petitioned for and was granted an injunction to end a lockout, only to have the underlying unfair labor practice allegation dismissed eight days later when the Administrative Law Judge who heard the case found that the ...

Following the NLRB’s announcement on July 29th of its position that McDonald’s and its franchisees are joint employers, commentators across the spectrum have been opining about this actually means for employers, unions and workers.

This week the AFL-CIO weighed in with its opinions in a post on its blog AFL-CIO NOW.  After recounting the background of the developments, in section called “What’s the Big Picture?” the author points out how organized labor intends to take advantage of the Board’s anticipated broadening of the standards for finding joint employer ...