As OnLabor covered last week (here and here), the Department of Labor recently issued an “opinion letter” finding that the workers deriving income from an unnamed “virtual marketplace company” are independent contractors and not employees covered by the Fair L... More »
One of the most widely observed weaknesses in federal labor law is the absence of effective remedies. Scholars have been writing about this problem for decades, and a Human Rights Watch report issued in 2000 described a “culture of near-impunity” resulting fr... More »
The House Education and Labor Committee recently revealed that the Trump appointees on the NLRB are hiring a private contractor to help review the public comments submitted in response to their proposed joint employer rule. NLRB Chairman John Ring told the Me... More »
When Donald Trump was elected, one of the top priorities for the Chamber of Commerce at the NLRB was to overturn the Specialty Healthcare decision that clarified the test for determining when a union’s proposed bargaining unit must include an additional group ... More »
Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it again would wade into the murky waters of whether charter schools are employers under the National Labor Relations Act. The question that the Board has put before itself this time, howev... More »
According to CNN’s exit polls, Donald Trump won the Presidency due to his support among voters who were over 45. Hillary Clinton was favored by 53% to 39% for voters under age 45, while Trump won older voters by a 52% to 44% margin. I’m sure very few of thos... More »
When the Supreme Court issued its decision in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira last week, it was reported as a win for workers. While that’s true, it was more like winning a consolation game after a bad call by a ref deprived you of your rightful place in the champ... More »
Yesterday, Ben and Adrienne sounded a note of caution about the Supreme Court’s opinion in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, which in many ways constitutes a rare win for workers at the Court. They found a potential long-term problem for Title VII in the origi... More »
This week, United Teachers Los Angeles called their first strike in decades. While the parties are negotiating over wages and staffing, a central issue in the dispute is the much bigger question of underfunding of the public school system. Teachers are askin... More »
When three Republican appointees on the D.C. Circuit tell the NLRB that its approach to an issue is “without foundation in the Act, relevant case law or any general legal principle,” you might think the Trump appointees on the Board would take heed. But,... More »
Last month brought news that some ride-hail drivers and their lawyers have adopted a new strategy for pursuing their misclassification-related claims against Uber and Lyft: filing for individual arbitrations in massive numbers. This came to light when attorney... More »
If you don’t know about the Powell Memo, you should. And, if you’ve heard of it, but haven’t read it, you ought to read it. The Powell Memo, written in 1971 by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell to the Chairman of the Education Committee of ... More »