Labor

  • January 07, 2025

    Amazon Fights Claims Of Retaliation Against Worker Protest

    Amazon placed a former employee on a performance improvement plan not to punish her for co-organizing a walkout but because she struggled in her role, the company told a National Labor Relations Board judge, requesting dismissal of board prosecutors' claims of retaliation against the worker.

  • January 06, 2025

    Wash. Labor Dept. Escapes Union's Farm Wage Challenge

    A Washington federal judge on Monday cut the state's employment agency loose from a union challenge to policies that have allegedly depressed farmworker wages, saying the U.S. Department of Labor is the only proper defendant in the litigation.

  • January 06, 2025

    Another Building Contractor Agrees To End No-Hire Pacts

    The Federal Trade Commission said Monday that Planned Building Services has agreed not to enforce terms in its contracts that prevent building owners from hiring the service contractor's workers, in a second recent case targeting the building services industry.

  • January 06, 2025

    Pa. Paper Fights NLRB's 'Rare' Injunction Bid At 3rd Circ.

    The publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette challenged the National Labor Relations Board's "rare" injunction motion to make it bargain with a union and rescind unilateral changes to healthcare benefits, telling the Third Circuit that the newspaper lawfully asserted an impasse in talks.

  • January 06, 2025

    Biden OKs Social Security Fix In Move Cheered By Unions

    Former government employees who have had their Social Security checks slashed because they receive a pension will see larger payouts this year now that President Joe Biden signed a bill repealing the decades-old benefit cuts, a move applauded by government employee unions.

  • January 06, 2025

    Tool Co.'s Labor Subpoenas Were Illegal, NLRB Judge Says

    An Indiana tool company used National Labor Relations Board litigation against it as an opportunity to pry into two former employees' union activity, a NLRB judge has ruled, finding the company served the workers with invasive subpoenas during the discovery phase of the case.

  • January 03, 2025

    Google Accused Of Refusing To Bargain With Contractor Unit

    National Labor Relations Board prosecutors have accused Google of violating a duty to bargain with unionized workers at one of its contractors, teeing up a challenge to an official's ruling that the tech giant is the workers' joint employer.

  • January 03, 2025

    NY Nursing Home Blames AG's 'Crusade' For Ch. 11

    The owner of a 588-bed nursing facility on Long Island has filed for Chapter 11 protection in a New York bankruptcy court with more than $58 million in debt, saying it was the victim of a "crusade" and "smear campaign" launched by the state attorney general's office.

  • January 03, 2025

    Laborers Benefit Funds Get OK For $4.7M Class Settlement

    A New York federal judge signed off on a $4.7 million settlement of a long-running dispute between a class of workers and two union benefit funds, giving final approval to a deal that ends 16 years of litigation over a transfer of money between funds in the 2000s.

  • January 03, 2025

    NLRB Official Approves Union Vote At W.Va. Health Center

    Workers at a West Virginia nonprofit behavioral health center for adults with intellectual disabilities can vote on union representation, a National Labor Relations Board official ruled, rejecting the nonprofit's argument that the union should also include workers at two other facilities in the state.

  • January 02, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Nonprofit's Union Dues Deduction Fight

    The Ninth Circuit refused to reinstate a conservative nonprofit's suit accusing Teamsters unions representing Washington state employees of committing constitutional violations by allegedly ignoring the nonprofit's mail containing dues revocation cards, concluding that refusal to accept such mail isn't a state action, and the unions aren't state actors.

  • January 02, 2025

    NLRB Judge Says Employment Pact Case Hit Wrong Employer

    A National Labor Relations Board judge has recommended dismissing a case accusing a New York City hospital system of including unlawful language in its employment contracts, saying agency prosecutors did not show that the hospital system employs the part-time physicians at issue in the case.

  • January 02, 2025

    Saxton & Stump Adds Employment Atty In 2-Pronged Position

    A veteran employment attorney will pull double duty in her new role at Saxton & Stump as part of the Pennsylvania-based firm's employment team and as an adviser for its affiliate human resources consulting company.

  • January 02, 2025

    Dartmouth Men's Basketball Players End Unionization Push

    The men's basketball players behind a union push at Dartmouth College have ended that effort amid uncertainty over whether a Republican-led labor board would uphold the landmark decision that let them vote to unionize.

  • January 01, 2025

    2025 To Bring Changes To Leadership And Direction Of NLRB

    Major changes are coming to the National Labor Relations Board in 2025 as President-elect Donald Trump takes office, including expected appointments to the board and general counsel's office that could drastically shift the direction of federal labor law.

  • January 01, 2025

    4 Contract Negotiations To Keep An Eye On In 2025

    While it may appear that unions will face the bulk of the headwinds coming toward the collective bargaining landscape in 2025, with the coming change in presidential administration and cooling inflation, experts told Law360 that employers will also be met with uncertainty given the shifting political and economic climate. Here, Law360 explores significant contract negotiations in the new year.

  • January 01, 2025

    NLRB Battleground Shifts To Appeals Courts In 2025

    Last year's hottest labor law issue is poised to get even hotter in 2025 as more courts weigh in on a growing pile of suits challenging the National Labor Relations Board's constitutionality, a development that poses a wide range of outcomes for the labor board and the workers, employers and unions it serves.

  • January 01, 2025

    Gov't Contracts Cases To Watch In 2025

    Federal courts in 2025 are expected to rehear a finding underpinning a high-profile commercial item contracting dispute, to determine the allowability of contentious labor-related clauses in federal contracts, and to decide whether to back the government's aggressive enforcement of cybersecurity regulations.

  • January 01, 2025

    Pa. Cases To Watch In 2025: Climate Change And Skill Games

    President-elect Donald Trump's impending return to the White House casts a new light on certain pending cases in Pennsylvania courts with federal implications, such as a suburban Philadelphia county's climate change claims against oil companies that contend the suits are preempted and the U.S. Department of Justice's entrance into monopoly allegations against University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

  • December 23, 2024

    NLRB Says Co. Unlawfully Insisted Upon Multiemployer Talks

    A Michigan paving company violated federal labor law by insisting that a union engage in multiemployer bargaining and locking out workers in an effort to force it to do so, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled.

  • December 23, 2024

    3rd Circ. Must Make Newspaper Rescind Changes, NLRB Says

    The National Labor Relations Board asked the Third Circuit to greenlight an injunction against the publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette involving a yearslong negotiating dispute with a NewsGuild affiliate, seeking compliance with portions of a board decision that required the company to walk back unilateral changes.

  • December 23, 2024

    NLRB Says Starbucks Sought To Stifle 1st Organizing Wave

    The National Labor Relations Board found Starbucks committed a host of labor violations to stem the first wave of union organizing in several Buffalo, New York-area stores three years ago, including firing union backers, promising to improve conditions and shuttering an organizing hub.

  • December 23, 2024

    NLRB Reverses Judge On Rail Union's Duty To Provide Notes

    The National Labor Relations Board reversed an agency judge's finding that a rail workers union breached its duty of fair representation by refusing to show a worker its notes from an investigatory meeting that preceded her firing, saying the union had valid reasons for keeping the notes secret.

  • December 20, 2024

    Federal Unions, Workers Bracing For 2nd Trump Term

    Federal workers and unions are steeling themselves for a second Trump term, anticipating a return of executive orders from the first administration that targeted federal workers' job security and limited the power of labor organizations.

  • December 20, 2024

    NLRB Members Disagree On Remedy In Starbucks Cases

    A pair of National Labor Relations Board judges correctly found that Starbucks illegally fought unionization in Los Angeles and Wichita, Kansas, but the judges overstepped by issuing broad cease-and-desist orders against the company, a split National Labor Relations Board ruled, saying narrow cease-and-desist orders are more appropriate.

Expert Analysis

  • How Trump Admin May Approach AI In The Workplace

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    Key indicators suggest that the incoming Trump administration will adopt a deregulatory approach to artificial intelligence, allowing states to fill the void, so it is critical that employers pay close attention to developing legal authority concerning AI tools, say attorneys at Littler.

  • Top 10 Legal Issues This Year For Transportation Industry GCs

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    General counsel must carefully consider numerous legal and policy challenges facing the automotive and transportation industry in the year to come, especially while navigating new technologies, regulations and global markets, says Francesco Liberatore at Squire Patton.

  • Top 10 Employer Resolutions For 2025

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    While companies must monitor for policy shifts under the new administration in 2025, it will also be a year to play it safe and remember the basics, such as the importance of documenting retention policies and conducting swift investigations into workplace complaints, say attorneys at Lawrence & Bundy.

  • NLRB Likely To Fill Vacuum After NMB Jurisdiction Ruling

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    The National Mediation Board's recent ruling in Swissport Cargo Services LP abandoned decades of precedent by concluding the Railway Labor Act doesn’t apply to airline service providers, likely leading the National Labor Relations Board to assert its jurisdiction instead and potentially causing more operational disruptions and labor strife, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Ring In The New Year With An Updated Employee Handbook

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    One of the best New Year's resolutions employers can make is to update their employee handbooks, given that a handbook can mitigate, or even prevent, costly litigation as long as it accounts for recent changes in laws, court rulings and agency decisions, say attorneys at Kutak Rock.

  • 9 Things To Expect From Trump's Surprising DOL Pick

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    The unexpected nomination of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., to lead the U.S. Department of Labor reflects a blend of pro-business and pro-labor leanings, and signals that employers should prepare for a mix of continuity and moderate adjustments in the coming years, say attorneys at Fisher Phillips.

  • Why State Captive Audience Laws Matter After NLRB Decision

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    As employers focus on complying with the National Labor Relations Board's new position that captive audience meetings violate federal labor law, they should also be careful not to overlook state captive audience laws that prohibit additional types of company meetings and communications, says Karla Grossenbacher at Seyfarth.

  • Pa. Ruling Highlights Challenges Of Employer Arb. Appeals

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    A Pennsylvania federal court's recent ruling in Welch Foods v. General Teamsters Local Union No. 397 demonstrates the inherent difficulties employers face when seeking relief from labor arbitration decisions through appeals in court — and underscores how employers are faced with often conflicting legal priorities, says Daniel Johns at Cozen O'Connor.

  • NLRB One-Two Punch Curbs Employer Anti-Organizing Tools

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    The National Labor Relations Board’s recent decisions in Siren Retail and Amazon, limiting employer speech about the impact of unionization and outlawing captive audience meetings, severely curtail employers' arsenal of tools to combat an organizing campaign — though this may soon change under a new administration, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • Timing Of An NLRB Power Shift Hinges On Biden Nominees

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    President-elect Donald Trump seems certain to shake up the National Labor Relations Board's prounion Democrat majority, but the incoming president's timing depends on whether the current Senate confirms two pending nominees to board positions, say attorneys at Fox Rothschild.

  • 5 Tips For Complying With NLRB Captive Audience Ban

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    The National Labor Relations Board’s recently ruled that so-called captive audience meetings violate federal labor law, representing a radical shift in precedent and creating new standards for employers to follow when holding workplace meetings where union representation will be discussed, say attorneys at Fisher Phillips.

  • Expect More State-Level Scrutiny Of Noncompetes Ahead

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    Despite the nationwide injunction against the Federal Trade Commission’s noncompete ban, and the incoming Republican administration, employers should anticipate that state legislatures will continue to focus on laws that limit or ban noncompetes, including those that target certain salary thresholds or industries, says Benjamin Fryer at FordHarrison.

  • NYC Hotel Licensing Law's Costs May Outweigh Its Benefits

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    A hotel licensing bill recently approved by New York's City Council could lead to the loss of many nonunionized hotels that cannot afford to comply, says Stuart Saft at Holland & Knight.