Troutman Sanders invites in-house counsel, HR professionals and other executives and managers charged with labor and human resources responsibilities to attend a half-day labor & employment seminar to learn the latest news on recent employment cases, hear best practices in HR strategies and understand how to remain compliant with key HR laws.
The National Labor Relations Board issued a landmark decision yesterday, reversing its precedent and establishing a new standard for determining when entities can be considered “joint employers” under the National Labor Relations Act. The 3-2 decision in Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc. held that Browning-Ferris, the owner and operator of a recycling facility, was a joint employer with its contractor, who provided workers (sorters, screen cleaners and housekeepers) to Browning-Ferris through a temporary labor services agreement. In its decision, the Board departed from its prior joint employer standard in significant ways. The new standard will make it much easier to establish a joint-employer relationship under the NLRA. Workers formerly excluded from union representation as non-employees could now be considered members of a collective bargaining unit with legal rights to negotiate terms and conditions of their employment through a union.
If you are a federal contractor subject to Section 503, then you are aware of the new regulations that were released in September 2013. While those regulations were released nearly two years ago, the most burdensome of these requirements (implementation of the Subpart C requirements) have not yet been implemented by most contractors because of the transition year period that allowed contractors to delay compliance with Subpart C. As contractors have been permitted to delay compliance, we have seen virtually no enforcement from OFCCP of the Subpart C requirements in audits. That is all about to change.
Managing interpersonal conflict in the workplace is always a delicate and time-consuming duty for managers and Human Resources personnel. But what happens when an employee claims that he or she suffers from a disability due to stress from working with a specific manager or supervisor? Must the employer accommodate the alleged disability by transferring the employee (or the supervisor!) to another role within the company? According to a recent opinion from the California Court of Appeals, Higgins-Williams v. Sutter Medical Foundation, 237 Cal. App. 4th 78 (3d Dist. 2015), the answer is No.
Mark your calendar and plan to join us for the July 16th HR Steps to Success program. The first program in our series will tackle the Fundamentals of Employee Discipline and discuss the ins and outs of properly disciplining employees. The presentation will cover the following topics:
After months of anticipation and many rumors about when the U.S. Department of Labor would release new proposed rules on which employees are eligible for overtime pay, the day has finally arrived. After a speech on the topic by President Obama the night before, the DOL publically announced on the morning of June 30th its proposed regulations, thereby starting the process necessary for the regulations to take effect. HR pros need to understand these new proposed regulations, but also the timeline they will be on before they can have the force of law.
More than a year ago we wrote about the intersection of state laws permitting certain medicinal and recreational use of marijuana and employers’ lawful ability to enforce policies prohibiting drug use. (A Hazy Area of the Law: The Impact of Medicinal and Recreational Marijuana Laws on Employers.) At that time, we noted that a Colorado Court of Appeals’ ruling strengthened the position that an employer can lawfully terminate an employee for using medicinal marijuana in violation of its drug policies, even if the employee was not impaired at work and did not use marijuana while at the worksite or during work hours. The Colorado Supreme Court recently confirmed that proposition, giving employers a big sigh of relief.
The U.S. Supreme Court has today upheld another challenged provision of the Affordable Care Act, this time related to government subsidies. We’ve gathered some of the top news articles on the decision:
Earlier this year, on March 18, 2015, NLRB General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr. issued a report covering recent cases on employee handbook rules that encroached on employees’ Section 7 rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Griffin’s report (GC Memo 15-04) stated that the vast majority of handbook violations are due to employers’ failure to comply with the first prong of the Lutheran Heritage test. The report also provides timely guidance to employers in light of a recent NLRB decision against a fast-food restaurant’s finding Section 7 violations in its employee handbook.
Last week the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) won what has become known as the “headscarf case” before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch, deals with provisions of Title VII that make it illegal for an employer to refuse to hire a job applicant just to avoid accommodating a religious practice. The decision expands Title VII liability to instances where a job applicant has not informed the employer of a need for an accommodation―a novel concept to many employers.