On Wednesday, July 8, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated ruling deciding that teachers at religious schools could not claim protections under anti-discrimination laws. The central issue in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru concerned the scope of the “ministerial exception”—a legal doctrine grounded in the First Amendment fashioned to protect a religious…
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Last week, in the case of Bellagio LLC v. National Labor Relations Board, the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia determined that the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas did not interfere with a bellhop’s “Weingarten rights” under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). Standing alone, this is an important decision for employers…
Read More ›As readers of this blog will note, we have previously noted a split among the U.S. Circuit Courts on the issue of whether class action waivers in arbitration agreements are legal or not: the Second, Fifth (see here) and Eighth Circuits have held that such waivers are legal (relying upon the Supreme Court’s holding in…
Read More ›The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to enforce critical portions of the NLRB’s decision in D.R. Horton, Inc., including its decision that class action waivers in arbitration agreements violated the National Labor Relations Act. The Fifth Circuit joins the Second and Ninth Circuits and numerous federal district courts in finding that federal labor law…
Read More ›Labor unions in the United States have been struggling with declining membership for decades. After reaching an all-time high of approximately 35% unionization of private sector employees in the 1950s, labor unions represent just 6.6% of private sector employees according to the National Labor Relations Board. Unions are very aware of this decline and have…
Read More ›Since the 2011 United States Supreme Court decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, appellate courts have assessed whether arbitration clauses with class action waivers are enforceable. Concepcion said yes and most courts have followed that precedent. The Ninth Circuit in Richards v. Ernst & Young on August 21, 2013 also followed the majority of the…
Read More ›For the first time since January 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) unquestionably has a quorum to issue rulings. This comes on the heels of the U.S. Senate’s votes yesterday to confirm a 5 members of the Board, three of whom are labor-friendly and two of whom have a management background. They are: Mark Gaston…
Read More ›According to the National Labor Relations Board, employers are free to have policies limiting e-mail usage for business purposes only. They are just not free to enforce it. At a Weyerhauser plant in Washington state, e-mail use is limited for all employees to “business purposes only,” with limited exceptions with managerial consent. The National Labor Relations…
Read More ›Several weeks ago, the NLRB filed a petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to reverse the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Noel Canning v. NLRB. In Noel Canning, the Supreme Court found that President Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB were unconstitutional and that since…
Read More ›Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the NLRB issued two new decisions in social media cases, one ordering the reinstatement of a tour bus driver who complained about his employer on a facebook page and the other striking down a hospital’s social media policy. This continues the Board’s…
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