Labor

  • March 13, 2025

    Judge Tosses Pot Co.'s Challenge To Calif. Labor Peace Law

    A California federal judge has dismissed a constitutional challenge to the Golden State's law requiring marijuana businesses to have labor peace agreements, saying that the court could not intervene in the matter because the entire industry is federally illegal.

  • March 13, 2025

    Amazon Tells 11th Circ. NLRB Captive Audience Ban Must Fall

    Amazon has urged the Eleventh Circuit to reverse a National Labor Relations Board decision declaring so-called captive audience meetings unlawful, saying the agency's precedent shift infringes on the First Amendment and runs counter to decades of interpretation of federal labor law.

  • March 13, 2025

    Rikers Fails To Pay For OT Work, Correction Officers Say

    New York City fails to take into account preshift tasks and extra compensation correction officers working on Rikers Island receive when calculating their overtime wages, a proposed collective action filed in federal court said.

  • March 13, 2025

    5th Circ. Sides With NLRB On Reconsidered Exxon Ruling

    The National Labor Relations Board didn't overstep by wiping out and rethinking a decision involving an Exxon Mobil unit after learning a member had a stake in the company, the Fifth Circuit said, enforcing the board's ruling that the company sabotaged negotiations with a union.

  • March 13, 2025

    Judge Orders Reinstatement Of Many Fired Federal Workers

    A California federal judge on Thursday ordered the immediate reinstatement of certain probationary employees fired from six federal agencies, saying the Office of Personnel Management did not have the authority to direct those terminations, making the firings "unlawful."

  • March 12, 2025

    'Not An Autocracy': Judge Says Trump Can't Fire FLRA Chair

    President Donald Trump last month unlawfully fired the Democratic chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a Washington, D.C., federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying the government "is not an autocracy" that allows the president to "remove federal officials on a whim."

  • March 12, 2025

    Hawley Bill To Speed CBAs Must Overcome Biz. Opposition

    Sen. Josh Hawley is seeking to build Republican support for a union-backed bill that he describes as adding a "shot clock" to bargaining obligations for initial labor contracts, even as business groups criticize the bill as unrealistic and legally suspect.

  • March 12, 2025

    Amazon Takes NLRB Constitutional Fight To 9th Circ.

    The Ninth Circuit must find that removal protections for National Labor Relations Board members and judges flout the U.S. Constitution, Amazon argued in a brief, challenging a lower court's denial of the e-commerce conglomerate's bid for an injunction to block an unfair labor practice proceeding.

  • March 12, 2025

    NLRB Atty Says Agency Stifled Her Over Park Advocacy

    An attorney in the National Labor Relations Board's Seattle office sued the agency in Washington, D.C., federal court Wednesday, alleging it suppressed her First Amendment rights by referring her for criminal prosecution over her work for a local park advocacy group.

  • March 12, 2025

    DC, 21 States Back Ex-NLRB Member's Reinstatement

    A coalition of 21 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia urged the D.C. Circuit to deny the Trump administration's effort to hold the reinstatement of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, saying delaying the reinstatement would stall labor disputes.

  • March 12, 2025

    Senate Confirms Trump's Pick For DOL Deputy Leader

    The U.S. Senate on Wednesday in a party-line vote confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for deputy labor secretary, the second-in-command of the U.S. Department of Labor.

  • March 12, 2025

    Acting NLRB GC Pulls Arguments In Starbucks, ACLU Cases

    A National Labor Relations Board attorney withdrew arguments in separate cases involving Starbucks and the American Civil Liberties Union about so-called captive audience meetings and negotiating over discipline with a new union, pointing to the acting general counsel's rescission of his predecessor's memorandums.

  • March 12, 2025

    Railroad Worker Says Board Schemed To Overtax Retirees

    Retired railroad workers were incorrectly directed by the federal retirement board overseeing their funds to report millions of dollars in nontaxable benefits as taxable income in a scheme to line the board's pockets, a retiree said in a proposed class action in Texas federal court.

  • March 11, 2025

    'Congress Never Came Up' In CFPB Firing Talks, Worker Says

    A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employee recounted before a D.C. federal judge on Tuesday a frantic effort to fire 1,200 agency staffers before a court order halted it, saying the prospect of first securing congressional approval was never mentioned.

  • March 11, 2025

    NLRB Won't Rethink Decision Issued At End Of McFerran Term

    The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday denied requests that it rethink a decision from last year that was served on the parties after the expiration of former board Chairman Lauren McFerran's term, saying a vote about the order happened on or before McFerran's Dec. 16 departure date.

  • March 11, 2025

    Ex-Officers Dodge Flight Attendant Union's Fiduciary Claims

    Former officers of the union representing American Airlines flight attendants escaped the union's allegations that they breached their fiduciary duties after an arbitrator found they misappropriated union funds, a Texas federal judge has ruled, with the district court finding the allegations weren't filed in a timely manner.

  • March 11, 2025

    2nd Circ. Affirms Union Fund's Win In COVID-19 Test Fight

    The Second Circuit upheld a win for a union benefit fund Tuesday in a medical practice's suit alleging it was owed reimbursements for COVID-19 testing from a union employee health benefit plan, finding a lower court properly tossed the complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.

  • March 11, 2025

    NLRB Judge Says Teamsters Unit's Referral Process Is Illegal

    A Teamsters unit in Texas violated federal labor law by prioritizing union members in its hiring hall referral process over nonunion members, a National Labor Relations Board judge concluded, while also dinging the local for delaying the referrals of two union dissidents for work on a film production.

  • March 11, 2025

    Trump's Special Counsel Firing Seems OK, DC Circ. Says

    The president appears to have the power to remove the feds' internal unfair firing watchdog because he's the sole head of an agency with executive power, a D.C. Circuit panel said, explaining its decision last week to stay a trial court's reinstatement order.

  • March 10, 2025

    Workers Challenging Firings Face Uncertainty At FLRA, MSPB

    Thousands of former federal workers are facing compromised paths to fighting the Trump administration's initiatives to cull their ranks, with courts turning away efforts to challenge the firings and rerouting the disputes to the Federal Labor Relations Authority and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

  • March 10, 2025

    Alsup Refuses To Vacate Hearing Into OPM Mass Firings

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Monday denied the Trump administration's request to vacate an upcoming evidentiary hearing into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's mass firings of probationary federal employees, and required OPM director Charles Ezell to appear in person or else be deposed.

  • March 10, 2025

    Starbucks Fired Union Backer For Striking, NLRB Judge Says

    Starbucks illegally fired a Workers United supporter in North Carolina for striking and refused to hire another employee given their union activities, a National Labor Relations Board judge concluded Monday, saying the coffee chain can't ask workers to get a manager's blessing before exercising their organizing rights.

  • March 10, 2025

    Bad Bunny Sports Firm Settles Contract Dispute With MLBPA

    The sports firm of music superstar Bad Bunny has reached a settlement that will end its dispute with the Major League Baseball Players Association, which it had accused in a Puerto Rico federal court lawsuit of killing its business with unreasonable sanctions.

  • March 10, 2025

    Senate Confirms Trump's Labor Secretary Pick

    The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee for labor secretary Monday evening, with support from more than a dozen Democrats and opposition from some members of the nominee's own party.

  • March 10, 2025

    AFL-CIO, Unions Defend Fight Against DOGE Access

    The AFL-CIO and a group of unions sought to keep alive their claims that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency can't legally access data from the U.S. Department of Labor and other federal agencies, telling a D.C. federal judge they have standing to file their suit.

Expert Analysis

  • Employers Beware Of NLRB Changes On Bad Faith Bargaining

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    Recent National Labor Relations Board decisions show a trend of the agency imposing harsher remedies on employers for bad faith bargaining over union contracts, a position upheld in the Ninth Circuit's recent NLRB v. Grill Concepts Services decision, says Daniel Johns at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Practicing Law With Parkinson's Disease

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    This Parkinson’s Awareness Month, Adam Siegler at Greenberg Traurig discusses his experience working as a lawyer with Parkinson’s disease, sharing both lessons on how to cope with a diagnosis and advice for supporting colleagues who live with the disease.

  • What A Post-Chevron Landscape Could Mean For Labor Law

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Chevron deference expected by the end of June, it’s not too soon to consider how National Labor Relations Act interpretations could be affected if federal courts no longer defer to administrative agencies’ statutory interpretation and regulatory actions, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Eye On Compliance: Employee Social Media Privacy In NY

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    A New York law that recently took effect restricts employers' ability to access the personal social media accounts of employees and job applicants, signifying an increasing awareness of the need to balance employers' interests with worker privacy and free speech rights, says Madjeen Garcon-Bonneau at Wilson Elser.

  • Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents

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    Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.

  • What The NIL Negotiation Rules Injunction Means For NCAA

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    A Tennessee federal court's recent preliminary injunction reverses several prominent and well-established NCAA rules on negotiations with student-athletes over name, image and likeness compensation and shows that collegiate athletics is a profoundly unsettled legal environment, say attorneys at Pillsbury.

  • Takeaways From NLRB Advice On 'Outside' Employment

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    Rebecca Leaf at Miles & Stockbridge examines a recent memo from the National Labor Relations Board’s Division of Advice that said it’s unlawful for employers to restrict secondary or outside employment, and explains what companies should know about the use of certain restrictive covenants going forward.

  • Shaping Speech Policies After NLRB's BLM Protest Ruling

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    After the National Labor Relations Board decided last month that a Home Depot employee was protected by federal labor law when they wore a Black Lives Matter slogan on their apron, employers should consider four questions in order to mitigate legal risks associated with workplace political speech policies, say Louis Cannon and Cassandra Horton at Baker Donelson.

  • 2026 World Cup: Companies Face Labor Challenges And More

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    Companies sponsoring or otherwise involved with the 2026 FIFA World Cup — hosted jointly by the U.S., Canada and Mexico — should be proactive in preparing to navigate many legal considerations in immigration, labor management and multijurisdictional workforces surrounding the event, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Eye On Compliance: Workplace March Madness Pools

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    With March Madness set to begin in a few weeks, employers should recognize that workplace sports betting is technically illegal, keeping federal and state gambling laws in mind when determining whether they will permit ever-popular bracket pools, says Laura Stutz at Wilson Elser.

  • There Is No NCAA Supremacy Clause, Especially For NIL

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    A recent Tennessee federal court ruling illustrates the NCAA's problematic position that its member schools should violate state law rather than its rules — and the organization's legal history with the dormant commerce clause raises a fundamental constitutional issue that will have to be resolved before attorneys can navigate NIL with confidence, says Patrick O’Donnell at HWG.

  • Handbook Hot Topics: Workplace AI Risks

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    As generative artificial intelligence tools penetrate workplaces, employers should incorporate sound AI policies and procedures in their handbooks in order to mitigate liability risks, maintain control of the technology, and protect their brands, says Laura Corvo at White and Williams.

  • Water Cooler Talk: Investigation Lessons In 'Minority Report'

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    Tracey Diamond and Evan Gibbs at Troutman Pepper discuss how themes in Steven Spielberg's Science Fiction masterpiece "Minority Report" — including prediction, prevention and the fallibility of systems — can have real-life implications in workplace investigations.

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