This summer, the National Labor Relations Board issued several pro-employer decisions, including two key decisions for employers involving misclassification of workers and property rights.
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NLRB Issues Proposed Rule That Grad Students Cannot Unionize
On September 20, 2019, the NLRB issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to exclude undergraduate and graduate students who perform paid work for private colleges and universities in connection with their studies from the definition of employee under the National Labor Relations Act. The proposed rule would prevent undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants from unionizing or collectively organizing.
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Virginia Enacts New Paystub Requirements
As we previously detailed, the Virginia General Assembly enacted an employment records disclosure law requiring employers to furnish Virginia employees certain personnel documents upon request. That law took effect on July 1, 2019.
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Supreme Court To Decide Whether Title VII Protects Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
After languishing on the docket for almost a year, the United States Supreme Court agreed today to hear three cases concerning the scope of Title VII’s protections for LGBT employees.
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The Seventh Circuit Upholds City’s Ban on Union’s Inflatable Rat
The Seventh Circuit recently upheld a local ordinance in Grande Chute, Wisconsin that banned all private signs on public rights-of-way despite challenges from a local labor union. In 2014, the town of Grande Chute passed a zoning ordinance that banned all private signs on public rights-of-way. Under the authority of the zoning ordinance, two town officials ordered a local chapter of the Construction and General Laborers’ Union to remove the labor union’s large, 12-foot inflatable rat, which, like other unions across the country, had become a longstanding feature of the Union’s strike tactics. Specifically, the Union had placed the inflatable rat in a median across from a car dealership that it was targeting.
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Class Wide Arbitrations – Who Gets to Decide?
The United States Supreme Court held this past Term in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis that class action waivers in arbitration agreements do not violate the National Labor Relations Act. In the wake of Epic Systems, courts have found that class action waivers are likewise permissible under the FLSA. These cases make clear that class action waivers are here to stay.
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SCOTUS Holds That Putative Class Members Cannot Use Equitable Tolling To File Successive Class Actions
In China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, the U.S. Supreme Court held that putative class members cannot rely on equitable tolling to file new class actions under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Resh was the third shareholder class action suit filed against China Agritech, Inc. under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The plaintiffs in the two previous suits settled their claims after the court denied their motions for class certification.
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Supreme Court Rules for Baker in Same-Sex Marriage Wedding Cake Case
In one of the most anticipated decisions of the term, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, dodged the key constitutional questions in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, issuing a narrow opinion finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission displayed “impermissible hostility” toward a baker’s sincerely held religious beliefs.
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Campaign Workers’ Overtime Suit Dismissed Based on Purely Local Activities
On February 1, 2018, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed an overtime class action suit brought on behalf of a group of former democratic campaign workers for their work during the 2016 presidential election. In dismissing the overtime suit, the Court relied on an often-overlooked defense to the Fair Labor Standard Act.
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Supreme Court Leaves Fourth Circuit’s New FLSA Joint Employer Standard Untouched
On January 8, 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari seeking to overturn the Fourth Circuit’s new joint employer test under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As a result, employers will continue to be faced with differing joint employer standards in the various federal circuits.
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