On October 31, 2022, the General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Jennifer Abruzzo, issued a memorandum instructing regional offices to closely scrutinize employer use of certain electronic monitoring, data collection and automated management technologies. This memorandum further evidences the NLRB’s commitment to effectuating a strong national labor policy which includes protecting employees’ organizational rights and encouraging collective bargaining as described in our November 2020 client alert. Abruzzo reiterated these policy objectives in her February 2022 memorandum issued in support of the Biden administration’s Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment’s February 2022 labor report.
Author: Matthew A. Fontana
What All Employers Can Learn From Most Recent Railway Dispute
On September 15, 2022, railroad companies and unions representing railway workers reached a tentative agreement to potentially prevent a strike that would have caused significant harm to the American supply chain and economy. While the unions’ membership must still ratify the agreement, the unions agreed not to strike during that process. Ratification votes will occur over the next 45 to 60 days. If any union does not ratify the agreement, then it may have the right to strike.
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Artificial Intelligence Briefing: FTC to Address Commercial Surveillance and Data Security
National Labor Relations Board and Federal Trade Commission execute Memorandum of Understanding to promote fair competition and advance workers’ rights.
On July 19, 2022, the NLRB and FTC formalized a partnership between the agencies that, among other things, will seek to protect worker rights from algorithmic decision-making. This is the most high-profile instance of the NLRB identifying algorithmic decision-making as something that could impact employee rights protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Employers with organized workforces (or workforces that could be the target of union organizing) should be aware of this development and the NLRB’s growing cooperation with the FTC.
Greater Wage and Overtime Protections for Pennsylvania Employees Effective August 5
In wake of recent legislation aimed at increasing employee rights and safeguards, the Pennsylvania legislature has promulgated new wage and hour regulations restricting employers and providing greater protections for employees. The new wage and hour regulations are effective on August 5, 2022. The new regulations impact two categories of employees: (1) tipped employees; and (2) salaried employees with a fluctuating workweek schedule.
Supreme Court Clarifies Transportation Worker Exception to Federal Arbitration Act
The Supreme Court unanimously held on June 6, 2022 that airline workers who load and unload cargo from airplanes are exempt from the coverage provided under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Employers commonly use the FAA to compel arbitration where disputes arise under employment agreements containing arbitration provisions. However, Section 1 of the FAA exempts “seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” from the FAA’s coverage. According to the Supreme Court, workers who load and unload cargo onto airplanes fall within that exemption.
Third Circuit Holds Arbitration Provisions Do Not Survive Expiration of CBA
On March 30, 2022, a panel in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals overruled nearly 30-year-old precedent and held that arbitration provisions do not survive the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in Pittsburgh Mailers Union Local 22 v. PG Publishing Co. The previous rule, first articulated in Luden’s Inc. v. Local No. 6 Union of the Bakery, Confectionary & Tobacco Workers International Union, 28 F.3d 347 (3d Cir. 1994), was premised on the idea that where an employer and a union agree to maintain certain terms and conditions of employment after the expiration of a CBA, a “new implied-in-fact-CBA” is formed that implicitly incorporates the expired CBA’s dispute resolution mechanisms. The only exceptions were situations where both parties intended the arbitration clause to expire with the contract or where one party, under the totality of the circumstances “objectively manifest[ed] to the other a particularized intent . . . to disavow or repudiate that term.” These exceptions were exceedingly narrow.
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