Posts tagged Adam C. Abrahms.
Blogs
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On Monday, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board” or “NLRB”), with a majority of appointees by President Biden, i.e., “the Biden-Board,” reversed the short-lived General Motors LLC, 369 NLRB No. 127 (2020) decision and reinstated the Atlantic Steel test for analyzing whether an employee’s grossly unprofessional conduct when engaging in union or other protected concerted activity loses the protection of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”). The Board issued Lion Elastomers, LLC, 372 NLRB No. 83 (2023) and reinstated Atlantic Steel 245 NLRB 814 (1979) and its progeny, making it more difficult for employers to discipline employees who engage in outrageous, otherwise inappropriate, speech and/or actions in the course of engaging in union or other protected concerted activity.

Blogs
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Approximately a month after the Board issued McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 58, which left employers scrambling to decipher its unclear impact on both unionized and non-unionized workplaces, Jennifer Abruzzo, the General Counsel (“GC”) of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) released guidance outlining her views on the decision’s implications and meaning in Memorandum GC 23-05 on March 22, 2023. The GC’s Memo contains an FAQ in response to inquiries the NLRB has received about the McLaren Macomb decision and outlines Abruzzo’s plans for enforcement of the decision.

Blogs
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On December 13, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board” or “NLRB”) issued a decision that greatly broadens the remedies available for violations of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”). Prior to this decision, the Board’s “make whole” remedies for more than 80 years have generally included only backpay, reasonable search-for-work expenses, and interim employment expenses.

Blogs
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In an Advice Memorandum dated April 20, 2022 and released on November 30, 2022, the Division of Advice within the National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB” or “Board”) Office of the General Counsel urged the Board to overturn existing Board law to significantly lower the standard for when an employer must furnish the union with its general financial information. This latest push to bolster unions during bargaining follows the NLRB’s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo’s (“GC”) issuance of Memorandum GC 21-04 regarding Mandatory Submissions to Advice on August 12, 2021, wherein she signaled her intent to change this standard.

Blogs
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On October 31, 2022, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) released Memorandum GC 23-02 urging the Board to interpret existing Board law to adopt a new legal framework to find electronic monitoring and automated or algorithmic management practices illegal if such monitoring or management practices interfere with protected activities under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”).  The Board’s General Counsel stated in the Memorandum that “[c]lose, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees’ basic ability to exercise their rights,” and urged the Board to find that an employer violates the Act where the employer’s electronic monitoring and management practices, when viewed as a whole, would tend to “interfere with or prevent a reasonable employee from engaging in activity protected by the Act.”  Given that position, it appears that the General Counsel believes that nearly all electronic monitoring and automated or algorithmic management practices violate the Act.

Blogs
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Employees’ free choice and their right to a secret-ballot election on union membership are potentially at risk, given the latest development from the Office of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”). On April 11, 2022, the NLRB’s General Counsel filed a brief urging a change in long-standing precedent, demanding that the Board force employers to recognize unions as the representative of their employees without first allowing employees the opportunity to cast their votes on union membership in a secret-ballot election held by the Board. The only real requirement for this dramatic result is that the union present signed authorization cards from a majority of the employees that ostensibly confirm the employees’ desire to be represented by the union and that the employer decline recognition of the union without a good faith doubt as to the union’s majority. This brief is General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo’s first major move to follow through on her previously stated goal of restoring this standard—known as the Joy Silk doctrine—which was abandoned more than 50 years ago.

Blogs
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On June 23, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) overruled a 2016 decision that required employers to bargain over the discipline of employees during negotiations for a first contract.  The Board noted that the decision it issued Tuesday in 800 River Road Operating Co., LLC d/b/a Care One at New Milford, 369 NLRB No. 109 (“Care One”), reinstated “the law as it existed for 80 years,” under which the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) did not impose a “predisciplinary bargaining obligation” on employers with newly-unionized ...

Blogs
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The National Labor Relations Board (“Board” or “NLRB”) on Wednesday, May 13, 2020, overruled decades of convoluted Board precedent regarding “dual-marked ballots” in union representation elections – establishing a new bright line test.  A “dual-marked ballot,” to put it simply, is a ballot that has markings in or around both the “YES” and “NO” box, thus, making it difficult, if not impossible, to tell whether the employee who cast the ballot actually intended to vote for or against union representation. Indeed, a dual-marked ballot might also mean that ...

Blogs
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On the heels of guidance regarding when the duty to bargain may be suspended or modified during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) finalized rulemaking today that changes three aspects of the Board’s representation election procedures (“Final Rule”).

The Final Rule overhauls the handling of unfair labor practice charges commonly referred to as “blocking charges” when a petition for an election is pending, revamps the Board’s voluntary recognition bar doctrine, and changes the evidentiary requirements for ...

Blogs
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In the chaos of a global health pandemic and what some economists are calling the Great Suppression, Americans have shown amazing solidarity in the battle against the coronavirus (“COVID-19”).  Nationwide, citizens are social distancing and staying home while businesses are closing their doors and redeploying their resources to meet emergent demands.  However, this collective American commitment has come at a steep economic cost.  Millions of Americans suddenly find themselves unemployed or unable to work while previously thriving businesses have been thrown into ...

Blogs
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The National Labor Relations Board has announced the issuance of its final rule governing joint-employer status. The new rule, which was first proposed in September 2018 and has been the subject of extensive public comment, will become effective April 27, 2020.

The critical elements for finding a joint-employer relationship under the new rule is the possession and the exercise of substantial direct and immediate control over the terms and conditions of employment of those employed by another employer.  The essence of the new rule is described in the Board’s February 25, 2020 press ...

Blogs
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As private sector unionization rates have continued to fall over recent decades, organized labor has increasingly turned to the state and local politicians it supports for assistance in the form of state legislation and local ordinances imposing burdens on employers and aid to unions, while depriving employees of the process and balance intended by the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”).  These often come in the form of “Labor Peace” requirements which mandate employers enter into agreements with unions that do not represent their employees as a condition of doing ...

Blogs
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The General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (“Board” or “NLRB”) has signaled what may be a major resetting of the law on the Board’s position concerning the legality of so called neutrality agreements, in which employers make concessions and accommodations to labor unions seeking to organize and represent their employees.  This occurred with the General Counsel’s consideration of an appeal by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc. (the “Fund”) of a dismissal of an unfair labor practice charge had filed  against United Here! Local 8 ...

Blogs
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As discussed in previous blog posts and articles, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in Boeing Co., overruled past precedent that had resulted in the invalidation of “commonsense [workplace] rules and requirements that most people would reasonably expect every employer to maintain.”  Boeing sought to return the analysis to a more balanced approach in which workplace rules would no longer be struck down simply because such rules could have been more narrowly tailored or just because a hypothetical employee theoretically might construe them to conflict with the ...

Blogs
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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 ...

Blogs
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In its long awaited decision in Mark Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the United States Supreme Court clearly and unequivocally held that it is a violation of public employees’ First Amendment rights to require that they pay an “agency fee” to the union that is their collective bargaining representative, to cover their “fair share” of their union representative’s bargaining and contract enforcement expenses. The Janus decision overturns the Court’s own 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which had found ...

Blogs
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In Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis  (a companion case to NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA and Ernst & Young v. Morris), the U.S. Supreme Court finally and decisively put to rest the Obama-era NLRB’s aggressive contention that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) prevented class action waiver in employees arbitration agreements, finding such waivers are both protected by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and not prohibited by the NLRA. In its 5-4 decision, the Court explained that the NLRB’s interpretation of the FAA was not entitled to deference because it is not the agency charged by Congress ...

Blogs
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On February 26, 2018, in a unanimous decision by Chairman Marvin Kaplan and Members Mark Pearce and Lauren McFerren, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) reversed and vacated its December 2017 decision in Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, Ltd. (“Hy-Brand”), which had overruled the joint-employer standard set forth in the 2015 Browning-Ferris Industries (“Browning-Ferris”) decision. The decision followed the release of a finding that a potential conflict-of-interest had tainted the Board’s 3-2 vote. What this means, at least for ...

Blogs
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Last Friday – the day the Star Wars movie Episode VIII hit theaters and the last working day of National Labor Relations Board Chairman Philip A. Miscimarra’s term – the Board continued its efforts to undo some of the most controversial and problematic decisions rendered by the Obama Board before the Republicans temporarily lose their majority.  As we previously reported, recent days have seen a stream of significant decisions and other actions from the National Labor Relations Board.  Most notably, the Board discarded the much criticized indirect control test for determining ...

Blogs
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As we have previously reported, Unions currently face a serious existential threat as the unionized workforce in America continuously declines and the looming threat of a National Right to Work law steadily grows.  Recognizing that when employees have a choice, they are losing the battle for the hearts and minds, Unions have not taken these deleterious developments lying down and have deployed numerous countermeasures designed to increase their dues paying membership, including unprecedented forays into previously untouched industries and membership pools.  These efforts ...

Blogs
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In what may be a harbinger of good things to come, the NLRB recently reversed an Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) finding that Macy’s, Inc.’s confidentiality policies unlawfully interfered with employees’ Section 7 rights.  Unlike many employer policy decisions issued by the Board in recent years, this case does not break new ground or saddle employers with new, unrealistic onuses.  It merely reinforces well-established rules regarding the use of sensitive customer information obtained from an employer’s records and actually reaffirms the right of ...

Blogs
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In Midwest Division-MMC, LLC, d/b/a/ Menorah Medical Center v. NLRB, the D.C. Circuit rejected the Board’s unprecedented application of Weingarten rights to voluntary meetings, by reversing the Board's Decision that would have extended the right of employees to have union representation at meetings at which the employees’ attendance is not compelled.

Kansas state law requires hospitals to establish an internal mechanism to monitor the standard of care provided by nursing professionals.  Pursuant to this law, Menorah Medical Center (“Menorah” or ...

Blogs
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On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Marvin Kaplan, a former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission lawyer, to fill one of the two open seats on the National Labor Relations Board, moving the agency a step closer to a Republican majority. Kaplan was confirmed on a 50-48 party-line vote by the GOP-controlled Senate.

The Senate has yet to schedule a vote for President Trump’s second nominee for the Board, William Emanuel, a long time management-side labor and employment lawyer. The Senate is expected to vote for cloture on Emanuel’s nomination after the August recess ...

Blogs
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According to news reports, the Trump administration has submitted Marvin Kaplan and William Emanuel for FBI background checks, and it plans to nominate them by June to fill a pair of vacancies at the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”).

The administration hopes to have the new members confirmed by the Senate before the August recess.

Kaplan is currently counsel to the commissioner of the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. He previously served as the Republican workforce policy counsel for the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Blogs
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As we recently reported, Dish Network, LLC unwittingly fell into the trap of a stipulated record, which proved fatal to its defense of a confidentiality admonishment issued to a suspended employee. The stipulated record in Dish Network, LLC did not set forth any business justifications for the confidentiality admonishment – an indispensable element in proving the lawfulness of such orders. Dish Network endeavored to cure this deficiency in its post-hearing brief, but the Board rejected its belated effort, in part, because the stipulated record was silent on this issue. This ...

Blogs
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In NLRB v. Pier Sixty, LLC, the Second Circuit held that an employee’s expletive-laden Facebook post – which hurled vulgar attacks at his manager, his manager’s mother and his family – did not result in the employee losing the protection of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”).  But even though the Second Circuit conferred protected status on this unquestionably obscene post, it did not create a protected right to level profane verbal assaults on management when discussing union business.  Such conduct has been, and will continue to be, unprotected in most ...

Blogs
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In recent years, the Obama Board has adopted some extreme views on Section 7 rights, which has pushed its jurisdiction into uncharted territories and left non-unionized employers vulnerable to attack. Two of the most notable examples are (1) Murphy Oil U.S.A., Inc. and D.R. Horton, Inc., in which the Board invalidated arbitration agreements with class action waivers and effectively ignored a mountain of legal precedent to the contrary, including the Supreme Court’s repeated affirmations of such agreements and the Board’s own longstanding jurisprudence and (2) Banner ...

Blogs
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On March 21, 2017, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) found that a Teamsters local violated Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) by failing to provide sufficient information about the financial expenditures of the local and its affiliates to two workers employed in a bargaining unit who exercised their rights to object to paying union dues and fees pursuant to Communications Workers v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988).

Teamsters Local 75 – Schreiber Foods

In Teamsters Local 75, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of ...

Blogs
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In 2016 private sector union membership dropped to its lowest level in history – a dismal 6.4%. Given the laws and systems in place related to union membership, this means that at least 94.6% of all American private sector workers currently choose not to be union members. The drop, recently reported in a routine annual report issued by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, also was the largest year over year percentage drop in recent years, dropping 0.3%, from 6.7% in 2015.

While the percentage of union members as a portion of the total workforce saw a steep drop ...

Blogs
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By appointing Philip Miscimarra, who has served as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) since August 2013, to serve as Acting Chair of the agency, President Donald Trump has taken the first step in what will undoubtedly be an ongoing process to change the National Labor Relations Board. Chairman Miscimarra is the only Republican currently serving on the Board. Mark Gaston Pearce, who has served as chairman, a Democrat who has served as chairman since 2011 and as a Board Member since 2010, will continue to serve under his appointment which expires in ...

Blogs
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In yet another decision that exhibits the current Board’s overreaching and expansive view of its jurisdiction, the Board recently ruled that nurses who supervise and assign other hospital staff are not statutory supervisors.

A Position Expressly Created to be Supervisory is Not Supervisory, According to the Board

In 2016, Lakewood Health Center (“Lakewood”) restructured its staffing system and replaced charge nurses with a newly created position, Patient Care Coordinator (“PCC”). According to the uncontradicted testimony of Lakewood Vice-President of Patient ...

Blogs
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As we previously reported, the ambush election rules implemented by the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) last year tilted the scales of union elections in labor’s favor by expediting the election process and eliminating many of the steps employers have relied upon to protect their rights and those of employees who may not want a union. We warned that in addition to rapidly expediting election timeframe, the regulations were full of technical and burdensome procedural mandates on employers.  The Board further emphasized the pro-union impact of these requirements ...

Blogs
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In a two page Order issued yesterday, Senior District Court Judge Sam R. Cummings of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) controversial new Persuader Rule issued in March 2016, and its new Advice Exemption Interpretation, are “unlawful,” and Judge Cummings made permanent his earlier June 27th Preliminary Injunction Order.

The Rule and Interpretation, which now appear to be permanently struck down, would have imposed dramatic changes in longstanding precedents, by requiring public financial ...

Blogs
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In the waning days of the Obama Administration, the President’s appointed General Counsel to the NLRB took official action this week to permit questionable and disruptive strike activity, including one day strikes that are frequently used by aggressive unions against hospitals and other employers.  Specifically, the GC’s Office issued an Operations-Management Memorandum acknowledging unions and employees “are more frequently engaging in short-term strikes” and seeking to “clarify and modify the law regarding intermittent and partial strikes” to address ...

Blogs
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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 ...

Blogs
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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 ...

Blogs
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The US Department of Labor has finally issued its long awaited Final Rule radically reinterpreting the “Advice Exemption” to the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (“LMRDA.”).  The Final Rule eviscerates any meaningful use of the Advice Exemption, which would be swallowed up by the new expansive definition of persuader activity which could include discussion regarding strategy, reviews of employer drafts and myriad other ways labor attorneys currently aid their clients including essentially any meaningful advice or counsel provided by labor ...

Blogs
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When:  Thursday, October 15, 2015    8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Where:  New York Hilton Midtown, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019

This year, Epstein Becker Green’s Annual Workforce Management Briefing focuses on the latest developments that impact employers nationwide, featuring senior officials from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We will also take a close look at the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and its growing impact on the workplace.

In addition, we are excited to welcome our keynote speaker ...

Blogs
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A couple weeks ago we provided anecdotal reports from several NLRB Regional Directors that after one month the new Ambush Election Rules union elections were being held in considerably less time, with the Regional Directors claiming elections were being scheduled between 25-30 days.  Last week, according to BNA’s Daily Labor Report and Law360, the NLRB released national results of the first month showing that the impact was worse than anticipated.

More Union Petitions Under Ambush Elections Rule

Between April 14 (the day the rules when into effect) and May 14, 280 ...

Blogs
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On March 18, 2015, NLRB General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr. issued General Counsel Memorandum GC 15-04 containing extensive guidance as to the General Counsel’s views as to what types employer polices and rules, in handbooks and otherwise, will be considered by the NLRB investigators and regional offices to be lawful and which are likely to be found to unlawfully interfere with employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the Act”).

This GC Memo is highly relevant to all employers in all industries that are under the jurisdiction of the National ...

Blogs
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New Union Rules and Rulings: Proactive Strategies for Employers Facing Today’s Aggressive National Labor Relations Board and New Expedited Representation Elections

April 14, 2015 – Hilton Westchester, Rye Brook, New York

May 7, 2015 – The L.A. Hotel Downtown, Los Angeles, California

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has adopted dramatic new rules and processes for union representation elections scheduled to take effect on April 14, 2015. The NLRB has also changed many of its standards concerning workplace rules, handbooks and policies affecting ALL EMPLOYERS ...

Blogs
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By: Steven M. Swirsky, Adam C. Abrahms, and D. Martin Stanberry

In case you were hoping that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Noel Canning would finally put to bed any questions regarding President Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB, or that the Fifth Circuit’s rejection of the Board’s decision in  D.R. Horton might alter the NLRB’s position on the right of employers to require employees to abide by mandatory arbitration agreements , think again.

In Fuji Food Products a decision issued on July 15, 2014, NLRB Administrative Law Judge Jeffrey D. Wedekind held ...

Blogs
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By: Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel, Steven M. Swirsky, and Mark M. Trapp

The U.S. Supreme Court today held that the US Senate was not in recess on January 4, 2012, when President Obama made three “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board under the Constitution’s Recess Appointment Clause.  In simple terms that means that the recess appointments were not proper and s decisions in which the recess appointees participated were not valid.

What this now means is that hundreds of cases decided by the NLRB following the January 4, 2012 recess appointments to the ...

Blogs
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As we noted in "First Kill All The Lawyers", last November the DOL announced its intention to move forward this month with the Administration's Proposed Rule change which would eviscerate the Advice Exemption to the Persuader Rule .  Yesterday, the DOL again delayed its timeline for finalizing the Rule.

In November the DOL's announcement asserted that it intended to publish a Final Rule in March.  On March 6, according to Bloomberg BNA, a DOL spokesman asserted that the Proposed Rule would NOT be made final this month.  The DOL did not give a new target date for finalizing the Rule ...

Blogs
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By Steven M. Swirsky, Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel, and Casey M. Cosentino

As previously predicted by the Management Memo on August 1, 2013 and October 30, 2013, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) issued a second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to amend its existing rules and regulations governing union elections procedures. If they look familiar when you see them, there is a good reason for that: you have seen them before.

As readers of the Management Memo are well aware, the NPRM is the latest development in the long saga of organized labor’s attempts ...

Blogs
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While most Americans were preparing for their Thanksgiving Feast, President Obama showed his thanks last week to Big Labor and its hundreds of millions in campaign contributions by ignominiously allowing his recently confirmed Labor Secretary to move forward his DOL's long pending radical proposal to dramatically change the decades old "Persuader Regulations".  The Proposed Rule is designed to give unions both an organizing and bargaining advantage by significantly restricting the right and ability of employers to obtain legal counsel and lawfully communicate with employees ...

Blogs
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by: Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel, Adam C. Solander, and Steven M. Swirsky

On September 13, 2013, the Obama Administration rejected the union movement’s intense  lobbying efforts to seek a waiver, so that their members would be able to receive tax subsidies in the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) Marketplaces for those of their members who will be offered “affordable coverage” from their employers.

Beginning January 1, 2015, the ACA requires that large employers offer affordable health coverage that provides minimum value to their “full-time employees” (those working ...

Blogs
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By Adam C. Abrahms, Steven M. Swirsky, and D. Martin Stanberry

On Tuesday, August 20th, in an opinion that follows in the wake of Noel Canning, United States District Judge Benjamin H. Settle dismissed an injunction petition filed by Ronald Hooks, a Regional Director  of the National Labor Relations Board, on the grounds that he was “without power” to issue the underlying unfair labor practice complaint.

The Regional Director had initially filed the petition with the District Court in June in an effort to obtain a temporary injunction that would, among other things, have ...

Blogs
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On August 1st President Obama made a bold statement by appointing Richard Griffin to serve as the NLRB's General Counsel only three days after the former union lawyer vacated his unconstitutional recess appointment as a NLRB Board Member. The President statement by appointment made at least two things clear -

  1. The President wants an aggressive pro-labor General Counsel and NLRB, and
  2. The President values advancing the labor agenda over cooperation with the US Senate.

As we discussed here on July 30th the Senate confirmed a full Board for the first time in a decade as a result of a "deal" in ...

Blogs
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By: Adam C. Abrahms and Stephanie R. Carrington

Since California’s implementation of legislation setting minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in 2004, the issue of nurse staffing has been slowly but surely creeping its way into other states’ legislation, attempts at federal legislation, and of course, into more union contracts.

When it comes to requirements for hospital staffing ratios, federal regulations provide only that hospitals participating in Medicare have “adequate numbers” of nurses and other personnel to provide nursing care.  But some states have ...

Blogs
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By Steven M. Swirsky, Adam C. Abrahms, and D. Martin Stanberry

With an eye toward next term, the Supreme Court announced on Monday, June 24th, that it had granted the National Labor Relations Board's (“NLRB”) petition for certiorari in Noel Canning v. NLRB. This news all but ensures that America’s highest court will determine not only the fate of President Obama's recess appointments to the Board, but also the extent of a president's Constitutional power to appoint individuals to various federal agencies, departments and courts without the advice and consent of the Senate.

Blogs
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By Adam C. Abrahms and Steven M. Swirsky

In another major defeat for President Obama’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board), the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found that the Board lacked the authority to issue a 2011 rule which would have required all employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”), including those whose employees are not unionized,  to post a workplace notice to employees. The putative Notice, called a “Notification of Employee Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act,” is intended to ostensibly ...

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