Joint Employer

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The National Labor Relations Board has an 80-plus year history of administering federal labor law and regulating labor-management relations in the United States. Since the board is made up of political appointees — five members who decide cases and a General Counsel who sets the board’s enforcement agenda — its interpretation of the National Labor Relations Act can vary depending on which political party holds the majority.
Continue Reading Returning Balance To The NLRB

Much has been written about the National Labor Relations Board’s controversial Browning-Ferris decision that significantly expanded the scope of joint employer liability under the National Labor Relations Act. But virtually no attention has been given to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent panel decision in Salinas v. Commercial Interiors, Inc., No. 15-1915 (4th…

On March 9, 2017, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC will hear argument in a challenge to the National Labor Relations Board’s controversial standard, announced in August 2015, for finding two businesses to be joint employers, and thus responsible for each other’s legal liabilities on the labor front.  The labor community is keeping a close eye on the case.  If the NLRB’s standard is upheld, businesses across the country will face the prospect of sharing labor and employment risk with their subcontractors, supply chain partners, and maybe even their franchisees.
Continue Reading Is Joint-Employer Risk Still A Problem For The Hotel Industry?

On February 14th 2017, Hunton labor partner Kurt Larkin will present testimony at the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions hearing on “Restoring Balance and Fairness to the National Labor Relations Board.”…
Continue Reading Hunton Labor Partner Kurt Larkin to Testify Before U.S. House of Representatives

Originally published by Construction Business Owner

By now, the employer community is well aware of the wide-ranging implications of Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc., 362 N.L.R.B. No. 186 (2015) (Browning-Ferris)—a decision that upended decades of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) precedent and dramatically expanded the definition of “joint employer” under the National Labor…

In a brief filed on September 7, 2016, the National Labor Relations Board urged the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to uphold its new “joint employer” standard, set forth in Browning-Ferris Industries, 362 NLRB No. 186 (Aug. 27, 2015). Through this new standard, the Board now seeks to impose collective bargaining and other NLRA obligations on companies that may indirectly control certain conditions of employment, or that merely reserve (but do not exercise) such control. …
Continue Reading Briefing Continues in Browning-Ferris Appeal

Earlier this week, the NLRB issued yet another troubling decision in the joint employer space, a world the Board already turned upside-down last summer with its landmark Browning Ferris ruling. In Miller Anderson, the Board overturned Bush-era precedent and held that a union seeking to represent employees in bargaining units that combine both solely and jointly employed employees is no longer required to obtain the consent of the employers, provided the proposed bargaining unit is appropriate under “traditional” Board precedent. …
Continue Reading NLRB Takes Another Step Towards Joint Employer Abyss

We are excited to introduce a new video series, Things You Need To Know in 5 Mins or Less. Each episode will feature a discussion of the legal and business challenges facing the real estate industry, and will include lawyers from a variety of disciplines throughout the firm. In the first episode of this new video series Carl Schwartz, co-chair of the firm’s global real estate practice, sits down with labor and employment partner Kurt Larkin to discuss the National Labor Relations Board “joint employer” rule: how it has changed and what it means for the real estate industry. …
Continue Reading New Video Series: What You Need To Know in 5 Mins or Less – Episode 1: Kurt Larkin on NLRB Rule

A concerned business community has closely followed the NLRB’s shifting views on the concept of “joint employers” – separate companies that are deemed to be so interconnected that they should be treated as one for purposes of labor relations activity and unfair labor practice liability. In August of last year, the NLRB decision in Browning-Ferris Industries, 362 NLRB No. 186 (Aug. 27, 2015), put into place a broad new test that dramatically expands the definition of “joint employer.” Now, an entity will be found to be a joint employer if it exercises only indirect control over the employment terms and conditions of another company’s employees. Indeed, joint employer status can be established if a company simply possesses, but never exercises, the ability to control such terms.
Continue Reading Business Groups and Others Support Browning-Ferris’s Appeal of the NLRB’s New “Joint Employer” Standard

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced yesterday that he has filed a “wage theft” lawsuit against Domino’s Pizza Inc., and several of its New York area franchisees. The case is particularly notable in that Schneiderman is pursuing a joint employer liability theory, seeking to hold Domino’s liable for the alleged wage payment violations of its franchisees. This is the first time Schneiderman has pursued such a claim in a wage payment case, and the lawsuit potentially opens a new front in federal and state enforcement agency attempts to expand the definition of what it means to be a joint-employer.
Continue Reading New York’s Attorney General Sues Domino’s, Enters The Joint-Employer Fray