As we previously covered here, the State of California and select California cities increased the minimum wage effective January 1, 2023. Now, another round of minimum wage increases from a dozen localities will take effect...more
As of Friday, July 1, non-hotel employers with full-time employees in West Hollywood must provide up to 96 hours of compensated time off (“CTO”) each year. (Part-time West Hollywood employees must receive a prorated number of...more
A recent California Court of Appeal decision confirms that a California employer may be liable to an at-will employee who relocates to accept a new employment position, when the employer’s description of the kind or character...more
2/25/2022
/ Appeals ,
At-Will Employment ,
Employee Relocations ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Job Duties ,
Labor Code ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misrepresentation ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
On November 10, 2021, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it is seeking public input to address whether the Board should award consequential damages to make employees whole for economic losses and under what...more
11/17/2021
/ Damages ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Labor Reform ,
Layoffs ,
NLRB ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Statutory Violations ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Wage and Hour
On January 14, 2021, the NLRB issued a decision in Asociacion de Empleados del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, 370 NLRB No. 71. The decision involved the issue of whether a term of employment contained in a collective...more
In an Advice Memorandum released Thursday, the NLRB’s Division of Advice concluded that employees who discussed an employer’s tip-pooling practices engaged in protected concerted activity, such that discharging the employees...more
In its January 31, 2020 decision in Phillips 66, 369 NLRB No. 13 (January 31, 2020) the Board reversed a number of findings of unfair labor practices found by an Administrative Law Judge related to the employer’s conduct...more
2/15/2020
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Good Faith ,
NLRB ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
In prior posts, we’ve discussed how information requests in the context of labor relations can be deceptively complex to comply with for employers. We’ve seen how an employer’s assertion of confidentiality, standing alone, is...more
1/22/2020
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Information Requests ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Union Representatives ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
The National Labor Relations Board recently held that a group of employees who were advocating on behalf of unpaid interns were not engaged in protected activity because the interns were not “employees” as that term is...more
Summer is winding down but the NLRB continues to be a source of vigorous activity. The Board recently issued a sweeping decision regarding the lawfulness of arbitration agreements. Also, the Board announced its intention to...more
On August 14, 2019, the NLRB issued its first decision addressing employer conduct related to mandatory arbitration agreements and Section 7 activity since the Supreme Court decided Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis, 584 U.S. __,...more
8/16/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Collective Actions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Contract ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 7 ,
Wage and Hour
This summer has been punctuated by walkouts. We have seen walkouts in support of a $15 minimum wage and walkouts to protest the sale of goods to the government. Walking off the job is, of course, a staple of labor action, and...more
7/31/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Policies ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Activity ,
Strike ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wal-Mart
Employers with union-represented employees also always have non-union employees, whether working in the office or at another worksite. Invariably, there are differences between the wages, benefits, and terms and conditions of...more
6/4/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Holiday Pay ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Union Representatives ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
Information requests in the realm of labor relations are simple in theory but can be complicated in practice. We have seen how the topics of information sought by a union can cause skirmishes, sometimes deliberately so. We...more
4/5/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Business Conduct Standards ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Confidential Information ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Policies ,
Information Requests ,
NLRB ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
The right of employees to band together for purposes of bringing grievances to their employer is at the very core of the National Labor Relations Act, as embodied in Section 7. This right is called protected concerted...more
We recently saw interesting decisions from the NLRB including cases about the employer’s duty to provide information about tax cuts, the lawfulness of litigation holds, and the validity of decertification petitions.
At the...more
1/14/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Coercion ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Decertification ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Protests ,
Right to Picket ,
Secondary Boycott ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
Last year about this time, the NLRB changed the standard for reviewing handbook rules. The new standard takes into consideration the fact there are many other interests other than the NLRA at play in a workplace, and seems to...more
12/24/2018
/ Data Retention ,
Duty to Preserve ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Litigation Hold ,
NLRB ,
Policy Memorandums ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Section 7 ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
The NLRB has been in a period of dormancy. When the make-up of the Board changed, a lot of people expected an onslaught of NLRB decisions reversing the reversals of precedent made by the agency in the last 8 years. Except...more
It is mid-November, and the Board is at a full complement, and even has a new General Counsel. While we haven’t seen anything significant (or really, anything at all) come out of the newly constituted Board we know the new...more
11/13/2017
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Remedies ,
Arbitration ,
Charging Party ,
Coercion ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Employee Benefits ,
Grievance Process ,
Lockouts ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Section 7 ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Strike ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
When an employer and a union sit down to bargain they often agree to ground rules for how negotiations are to be conducted. A common ground rule, for example, is for the parties to agree to address “non-economic” items before...more
In another example of the inconsistency of the current state of Board law, a 2-1 majority of the NLRB ruled that an employer not only had a management right but it wasn’t necessary that this right be expressly set forth in...more
In a 2-1 ruling in DirecTV Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the NLRB’s ruling that DirecTV must reinstate technicians who were terminated for complaining about a...more
9/23/2016
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
DirectTV ,
Grievance Process ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Satellites ,
Television Service Providers ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Wage and Hour
Employee Who Was Working Elsewhere During Medical Leave Of Absence Was Properly Terminated -
Richey v. AutoNation, Inc., 182 Cal. Rptr. 3d 644 (Cal. S. Ct. 2015).
Avery Richey worked for Power Toyota Cerritos,...more
$300,000 In Punitive Damages Upheld In Sexual Harassment Case Despite Nominal Damages Award -
State of Arizona v. ASARCO LLC, 2014 WL 6918577 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc).
Angela Aguilar who worked in a copper mine...more
1/14/2015
/ Bribery ,
Constructive Discharge ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress ,
Mining ,
Promissory Notes ,
Punitive Damages ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
School Districts ,
Security Checks ,
Severance Pay ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Wage and Hour ,
Whistleblowers ,
Wrongful Termination