October 27th 2021
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On Tuesday, Washington governor Jay Inslee signed an executive order intended to mitigate the fallout from the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Epic Systems. In the order, the governor instructs state agencies to contract only with businesses who can demonstrate...
A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that over half of Americans view the decline in labor union density negatively, while just over a third see the traditional labor movement’s shrinking membership in a positive light. The results reflect a partisan...
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has reached tentative agreements that would cover about half of its 50,000 hotel and casino workers who voted to strike this month in Las Vegas. Local 226 has now reached tentative agreements with both Caesars and MGM, but there...
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, Chipotle has asked the Federal District Court of Colorado to exclude 2,814 workers from a wage theft lawsuit because these workers signed mandatory arbitration agreements barring them from...
After the oral argument in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, I wrote that the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court would have to put their thumbs heavily on the scale for the employers to prevail. Sadly, it was no surprise that this is exactly what happened....
In September, we worried that the Trump Administration was using Epic Systems (aka Murphy Oil) to lay the groundwork for curtailing protection of concerted activity outside the union organizing and collective bargaining context. To our relief, Epic Systems does...
The Supreme Court holds this morning in Murphy Oil that class and collective action bars in arbitration agreements are enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and are not incompatible with the NLRA. The majority opinion by Justice Gorsuch is notable...
Last week the Supreme Court passed up an opportunity to resolve a hotly disputed aspect of employment arbitration law: Whether judges or arbitrators should decide whether class (or collective) arbitration is available when an arbitration agreement is silent on the subject. The Court’s denial of certiorari in Opalinski v. Robert Half International, Inc., 583 U.S. — (No. 16-1456) (Order List of October 30, 2017, p. 10) thus put a precipitous and somewhat unexpected end to a bit of suspense about this case over the last few months. While the arbitration spotlight is currently focused on the Court’s consideration of whether enforcement of class arbitration waivers violate the National Labor Relations Act, see, Epic Systems Corp. v Lewis, No. 16-285 (argued in tandem with Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris, No. 16-300 and N.L.R.B. v. Murphy Oil USA, No. 16-307 on October 2, 2017), lurking in the shadows is a corollary issue presented in Opalinski: What happens when an employment agreement specifying arbitration does not contain such a class action waiver? That is, if an agreement says nothing about class arbitration one way or the other, who decides whether class treatment is permissible? More precisely, is class treatment a procedural question for an arbitrator or is it a gateway arbitrability question for a judge to decide?
This post is part of OnLabor’s continuing analysis of National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA. Bloomberg BNA reports that in National Labor Relations Board v. Alternative Entertainment, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit joins the...
This post is part of OnLabor’s continuing analysis of National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA. Although opening briefs in the consolidated cases of Murphy Oil, Ernst & Young, and Epic Systems were due on April 28th, last week, the Supreme Court...