As if the massive disruption resulting from the Coronavirus is not enough, mid-size employers must remain alert to union efforts to organize your workforce and petition for an election in the midst of the ongoing crisis.
Two recent events give rise to the concern that unions will be aggressive in their organizing efforts in this
Although “joint employment” is not a new legal concept, in recent years federal agencies such as the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board have made aggressive efforts to expand its application. The targets of those who seek to expand the concept of joint employment are typically employers who use independent contractors (common in
As many employers recall with chagrin, the National Labor Relations Board and its General Counsel were very active during the Obama administration, overturning long-established precedent, changing rules in a way that favored unions over employers, and inserting itself into employment issues where the Board traditionally had not acted.
The NLRB, now with a majority
On December 13 the National Labor Relations Board announced amendments to a controversial 2014 election rule issued under the Obama era NLRB. The amended rule will be published on December 18, and is scheduled to go into effect 120 days later, on April 16, 2020.
The union friendly 2014 rule, widely described as providing for
As employment cases go, the 2018–2019 adjudicative term (covered in Part I here) may go down as a year of missed chances. In Hawkins v. Grinnell Regional Medical Center, Patrick Smith wrote in June, the Justices failed to address an emotional-distress award’s excessiveness and the permissibility of a “golden rule” argument used in
The Iowa Supreme Court wrapped up its latest adjudicative term on June 28, 2019, having submitted 113 cases. More remarkable for the changes it witnessed than for its labor and employment decisions, the term began with the Court’s first new Justice since 2011. By term’s end another had been appointed. The Court that completed this
Because so few employees are represented by a union (just over 6 percent of private sector employees in the U.S.) most employers don’t have to deal with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) on a regular basis, if ever. But, it’s important to remember that employees who are not represented by unions also
On March 14, the Department of Labor issued an opinion letter to answer the following two questions about FMLA leave: 1) may an employer delay designating leave as FMLA covered, even if the leave is for a FMLA qualifying reason, to allow the employee to exhaust paid leave first; 2) may an employer expand an
There is reason to be concerned the AFSCME lawsuit challenging the recent collective bargaining amendments will undermine the legislature’s effort to reform public sector collective bargaining. As discussed in our previous post on the new law, AFSCME Council 61, the state’s largest public employee union, filed a lawsuit to invalidate the new law on February
The 2017 Iowa legislative session has been one of the more rancorous in recent memory, driven in large part by proposed amendments to the public sector collective bargaining law. Following all-night debates and massive protests by union supporters, the house and senate both voted on February 16 to make the most sweeping changes in