By Alex Meier & Cary Reid Burke
The National Labor Relations Board moved from theory to practice in this administration’s battle against restrictive covenants. Recently, the Regional Director of Region 9 of the National Labor Relations Board filed a consolidated complaint alleging that certain restrictive covenants contained in offer letters and policies in an employee
By: Molly Gabel and Rachael Reed
On August 31, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board’s Democratic majority issued a decision in American Federation for Children, Inc. The ruling expands the scope of activities protected by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to include statutory employees’ efforts to advocate for nonemployees. To reach
By: Jamie Rich, Lisa Nichols, and Joe Vento
On August 25, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) issued its much-anticipated Cemex decision, which has broad implications for union organizing. It handed unions a win with a partial return to the Joy Silk standard. Now, if a union demands recognition from
By: Sul Ah Kim and Cary R. Burke
Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) overturned established precedent and held that a facially neutral work rule is presumptively unlawful if a “reasonable” employee predisposed to engaging in protected concerted activity could interpret the rule to have a “coercive meaning.” Stericycle, Inc.
By: Elliot Fink and Cary Burke
Seyfarth Synopsis: In The Atlanta Opera, 372 NLRB 95 (2023), the National Labor Relations Board overturned Trump-era precedent by modifying its independent contractor test and returning to the test announced by the Obama Board. The NLRB now will review a multitude of enumerated and non-enumerated factors when determining
By: Saman Haque and Cary Burke
Seyfarth Synopsis: Recently, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), issued a decision in two cases that create the opportunity for the National Labor Relations Act to have a more expansive view of what constitutes protected activity. The ALJ’s decision could also provide employees an expanded definition of protected activity by
By: Cary Burke, Sul Ah Kim, and Olivia Jenkins
Seyfarth Synopsis: Recently, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision that grants employees broad leeway to make lewd, lascivious, racist, or otherwise inappropriate comments at work, so long as those comments are connected in some way to wages, hours, terms and conditions of
By Cary Burke
On April 4, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board signaled that it might allow employees to recover damages stemming from employers refusing to follow bargaining orders pending appeal. In Hudson Institute of Process Research, 372 NLRB No. 73 (April 4, 2023), the Board ruled that the employer unlawfully failed to
By: Jamie Rich, Michael Berkheimer, and Andrew Cohen
On March 20, 2023, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued GC Memo 23-04. The memorandum is a follow-up to her August 12, 2021, GC Memo 21-04 (“Mandatory Submissions to Advice”), in which General Counsel Abruzzo announced that she
By: Cary Burke
As we previously posted here, on February 21, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) ruled in McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB No. 58, that the mere proffer of a draft severance agreement containing broad confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions violated the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or “Act”).
Since that