On February 26, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Ames v. OH Dept. of Youth Services, which questioned whether the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals correctly decided that a heterosexual plaintiff should have...more
3/11/2025
/ Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Discrimination ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Reverse Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII
Signaling a strong shift away from the policy positions of the former administration, Acting National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel William Cowen issued a GC Memorandum on February 14, 2025, rescinding 31 GC...more
2/18/2025
/ Employee Rights ,
Employment Policies ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions
On November 8, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) handed down its decision in Siren Retail Corp. d/b/a Starbucks, 373 NLRB 135, turning 40-year-old precedent regarding what employers can and cannot...more
As we previously addressed, on June 13, 2024, the Supreme Court struck a blow to the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) and provided employers a major win in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, et al., a case involving a...more
Last year, the United Auto Workers (“UAW”) championed what they considered to be a massive win derived from more than 50,000 of its 146,000 members striking at various Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors plants across twenty...more
As every employer in the U.S. is likely aware, the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) near-universal ban on non-competes nationwide, which the FTC voted to implement via regulatory rulemaking on April 23 of this year, has...more
8/21/2024
/ Chevron Deference ,
Employment Contract ,
Enforceability ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Pending Legislation ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Regulatory Authority ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Unfair Competition
Over the past several years, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) under the Biden administration has taken several measures to make union election procedures more union-friendly....more
Update: Since the alert below was issued on March 13, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) appealed the lower court’s decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On July 19, 2024, the Board filed an...more
7/26/2024
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Arbitrary and Capricious ,
Franchises ,
Joint Employers ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
New Rules ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Regulatory History ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Staffing Agencies
After the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) voted on April 23 to enact its nationwide ban on non-competes, employers and business organizations did not have to wait long—not even a day—before challengers began opposing the...more
EEOC Title VII Guidance Challenged -
On May 21, the Texas attorney general sought a permanent injunction to block the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (“EEOC”) enforcement guidance over gender identity and...more
5/24/2024
/ Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Cemex ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Gender Identity ,
Mercedes-Benz ,
Minimum Salary ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Title VII ,
UAW ,
White-Collar Exemptions
On the heels of the United Auto Workers’ (“UAW”) successful campaign to organize Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Mercedes-Benz workers in Vance, Alabama chose a different path, rejecting the UAW as their...more
Less than one day after the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued its Final Rule that would enact a nationwide ban on most non-competition agreements, at least two lawsuits have been filed against the FTC which seek to...more
On April 23, 2024, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued its widely anticipated Final Rule adjusting the minimum annual salary that an employee must be paid as of July 1, 2024, in order to qualify under some of the FLSA’s...more
In early 2023, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB or “Board”) decision in McLaren Macomb, 372 NLRB 58, revoked employers’ ability to require their employees to keep the terms of severance packages confidential and to...more
4/1/2024
/ Confidential Communications ,
Confidentiality Policies ,
Contract Terms ,
Disclaimers ,
Disparagement ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Profanity ,
Severance Agreements ,
Severance Pay ,
SpaceX ,
Surveillance ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions
A National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) rule set to take effect on Monday, March 11 and slated to significantly expand the circumstances in which a company would be deemed a joint employer under the National Labor...more
The Fallout from the NLRB’s Cemex Decision -
As we previously addressed, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) August 25, 2023, decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC overturned long-established...more
On September 6, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation prohibiting employers from disciplining employees who choose not to attend captive audience meetings. Enactment of this legislation comes as no surprise,...more
In recent weeks, both the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) and U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) have signaled or put into effect several pro-union initiatives. Collectively, these moves will...more
8/4/2023
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employment Policies ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Persuader Rules ,
Remedies ,
Taft-Hartley Act ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Union Organizers ,
Unions
Last week, the Ninth Circuit issued a significant ruling in Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, concluding that California’s Assembly Bill 51 (“AB 51”) is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). AB 51, which was passed by...more
2/27/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Chamber of Commerce ,
Class Action ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Preemption ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
State Labor Laws ,
Viking River Cruises ,
Viking River Cruises Inc v Moriana
The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) announced a new program that U.S. employers could use to hire up to 30,000 workers each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, dwarfing programs that employers currently...more
In what is becoming a holiday tradition, consequential National Labor Relations Board rulings continue this December. First, after nearly six decades, the Board has conformed to a rigid test in evaluating whether an employer...more
On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board issued a groundbreaking decision in American Steel Construction, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 23 (2022), reviving the concept of collective bargaining “micro-units.” Micro-units are...more
On March 30, 2022, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, in which the Court is poised to decide whether the Federal Arbitration Act compels enforceability of an individualized arbitration...more
On October 29, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued its final rule outlining the circumstances under which an employer is permitted to take a “tip credit” against its wage obligation to tipped employees, paying...more
On April 27, 2021 President Biden signed an Executive Order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 per hour by the end of March 2022. In response, and to supplement the Executive Order, the U.S. Department of...more