Scott F. Cooper
On Thursday, December 14, 2017, employers scored a significant victory at the National Labor Relations Board. The Board, in a straight 3-2 partisan vote, reversed its 2015 decision in Browning-Ferris Industries and eliminated the rule that employers and their contractors or franchisees can be deemed a “joint employer” even when one company does not exert direct control over the second entity’s workers.
In Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors Ltd. and Brandt Construction Co., NLRB Chair Philip Miscimarra, joined by the two newest NLRB board members, William Emanuel and Marvin Kaplan, significantly reduced the scope of joint employer status in reversing BFI. The issue over the scope of joint employer status at the Board has been simmering for some time, as NLRB Chair Miscimarra wrote a dissenting opinion in the 2015 BFI decision, which was issued under the Obama administration when Democrat members held the Board majority. Continue reading “Employers Score Major Win as Predicted Changes at National Labor Relations Board Start to Come True”
On October 5, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) stance that gender identity is protected as part of the prohibition against “sex” discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sessions issued a 
Earlier this year, New York City 
Enacted in 1935, the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) was designed, among other things, to protect the rights of employees and employers, including protecting an employee’s right to engage in protected concerted activity in the workplace, such as complaining to other employees about her manager or terms and conditions of employment, without fear of retaliation by his or her employer. The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), an independent federal agency with five members appointed by the president, enforces the NLRA and effectively controls its interpretation and application, subject to limited review by the courts. In less than a decade, the NLRB of the Obama administration extended the protections of the NLRA—in ways some would say were never contemplated by Congress—to employees’ work-related conversations conducted on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. Those protections apply regardless of whether the employee is represented by a union or not. With this expansion of protection for social media activities, employers must carefully consider the NLRB’s decisions, or else proceed at their own peril. 
Over half of the states in the country allow for the limited possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Several states, including New York, Connecticut, and Illinois, even provide explicit workplace protections to prevent adverse employment actions against medical marijuana patients. However, the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”) makes it a federal crime to use, possess, or distribute marijuana. Under federal law, marijuana remains classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, regardless of whether it has any acceptable medical uses. So what should an employer do when an applicant or employee fails a drug test due to marijuana use, or after being informed that an applicant or employee needs to use marijuana as part of his or her medical treatment? These questions are slowly making their way into courthouses across the country, and two recent cases may prove to be instructive. 