Management Memo

On April 29, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued an opinion letter concluding that workers providing services to customers referred to them through an unidentified virtual marketplace are properly classified as independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).

Although the opinion letter is not “binding” authority, the DOL’s guidance should provide support to gig economy businesses defending against claims of independent contractor misclassification under the FLSA. The opinion letter may also be of value to businesses ...

Our colleague Steven Swirsky is featured on Employment Law This Week - DOL Proposes New Joint-Employer Rule speaking on the recent Department of Labor (DOL) ruling regarding joint-employers status under the Fair Labor Standards Act while the The National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) joint-employment rule proposed in September 2018 is still pending.

Watch the interview below.

My colleagues Adriana S. Kosovych, Jeffrey H. Ruzal, and I have posted on Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.’s  Hospitality Labor and Employment Law blog concerning the U.S. Department of Labor’s Proposed New Rule to Determine Joint Employer Status under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  In its proposed new rule, the DOL notes that the National Labor Relations Board is also engaged in rulemaking to set new standards for determining joint employer status under the National Labor Relations Act.  Our blog post discusses the similarities and differences between the two proposed rules.

Since 2015, employers have faced continued uncertainty regarding which standard the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) will apply when determining joint-employer status under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). Businesses utilizing contractors and staffing firms or operating in partnering arrangements, as well as those engaged in providing temporaries and other contingent workers, have faced a moving target before the Board when it comes to potential responsibility in union recognition, bargaining obligations, and unfair labor ...

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) issued a decision that “begins the process of restoring” a decades-old definition of “concerted activity” under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the “Act”) – a definition that, in the Board’s view, had become muddled and unduly expanded as recent decisions “blurred the distinction between protected group action and unprotected individual action.”

In a 3-1 decision, with Member McFerran dissenting, the Board in Alstate Maintenance, LLC upheld an administrative ...

In a three to one decision issued on January 25, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) in SuperShuttle DFW, Inc., 367 NLRB No.75 (2019), the Board announced it was rejecting the test adopted in 2014 in FedEx Home Delivery, 361 NLRB 610 (2014) for determining whether a worker was an employee or an independent contractor and returning to the test it used prior to the FedEx Home decision.

As the decision in SuperShuttle makes clear, the determination of whether a worker is an employee entitled to the protections of the National Labor Relations Act (the ...

The National Labor Relations Board has announced publication of a proposed rule that will establish a new and far narrower standard for determining whether an employer can be held to be the joint-employer of another employer’s employees. The rule described in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Federal Register on September 14, 2018, will, once effective essentially discard the Board’s test adopted in Browning-Ferris Industries (“Browning-Ferris”) during the Obama Administration, which substantially reduced the burden to establish that ...

Since earlier this year, reports have circulated that National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) General Counsel Peter Robb planned to introduce changes in its case handling processes and organizational structure that would move certain authority away from the Regional Directors and transfer substantive decision making authority to Washington. While the General Counsel denied the specifics, he acknowledged that as the Board was faced with a reduced case load and budgetary pressures, some changes would be necessary and appropriate. It now appears safe to ...

The New York City Temporary Schedule Change Law (“Law”), which became effective on July 18, 2018, raises new issues that employers with union represented employees will need to address as their existing collective bargaining agreements (“CBA”) come up for renewal.

The Law allows most New York City employees up to two temporary schedule changes (or permission to take unpaid time off) per calendar year when such changes are needed due to a “personal event.” The Law also prohibits retaliation against workers who request temporary schedule changes. Additional detailed ...

One of the more controversial actions of the United States Department of Labor during the Obama Administration was its 2016 issuance of a Final Rule that was intended to radically rewrite the rules concerning the “Advice Exemption” to Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (“LMRDA”).  The 2016 Final Rule was hotly contested because it would have required employers and their labor law counsel to report concerning advice the lawyers provided even when the lawyers did not directly communicate with their client’s employees. For almost 50 years such ...