Tag: joint employer

New Year, (Potentially) New Rules?

SOMETIMES, THE ONLY CONSTANT IS CHANGE. THIS NEW YEAR IS NO DIFFERENT.

In 2023, we saw several developments in labor and employment law, including federal and state court decisions, regulations, and administrative agency guidance decided, enacted, or issued. This article will summarize five proposed rules and guidance issued by the Department of Labor (“DOL”), the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”), which will or may be enacted in 2024.

DOL’s Proposed Rule to Update the Minimum Salary Threshold for Overtime Exemptions

In 2023, the DOL announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) recommending significant changes to overtime and minimum wage exemptions. Key changes include:

  • Raising the minimum salary threshold: increasing the minimum weekly salary for exempt executive, administrative, and professional employees from $684 to $1,059, impacting millions of workers;
  • Higher Highly Compensated Employee (HCE) compensation threshold: increasing the total annual compensation requirement for the highly compensated employee exemption from $107,432 to $143,988; and
  • Automatic updates: automatically updating earning thresholds every three years.

These proposed changes aim to expand overtime protections for more employees and update salaries to reflect current earnings data. The public comment period closed in November 2023, so brace yourselves for a final rule in the near future. For more information: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/09/08/2023-19032/defining-and-delimiting-the-exemptions-for-executive-administrative-professional-outside-sales-and

DOL’s Proposed Rule on Independent Contractor Classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act

The long-awaited new independent contractor rule under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) may soon be on the horizon. The DOL proposed a new rule in 2022 on how to determine who is an employee or independent contractor under the FLSA. The new rule will replace the 2021 rule, which gives greater weight to two factors (nature and degree of control over work and opportunity for profit or loss), with a multifactor approach that does not elevate any one factor. The DOL intends this new rule to reduce the misclassification of employees as independent contractors and provide greater clarity to employers who engage (or wish to engage) with individuals who are in business for themselves.

The DOL is currently finalizing its independent contractor rule. It submitted a draft final rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review in late 2023. While an exact date remains unknown, the final rule is likely to be announced in 2024. More information about the rule can be found here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/13/2022-21454/employee-or-independent-contractor-classification-under-the-fair-labor-standards-act

NLRB’s Joint-Employer Standard

The NLRB has revamped its joint-employer standard under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The NLRB replaced the 2020 standard for determining joint-employer status under the NLRA with a new rule that will likely lead to more joint-employer findings. Under the new standard, two or more entities may be considered joint employers of a group of employees if each entity: (1) has an employment relationship with the employees and (2) has the authority to control one or more of the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment. The NLRB has defined “essential terms and conditions of employment” as:

  • Wages, benefits, and other compensation;
  • Hours of work and scheduling;
  • The assignment of duties to be performed;
  • The supervision of the performance of duties;
  • Work rules and directions governing the manner, means, and methods of the performance of duties and the grounds for discipline;
  • The tenure of employment, including hiring and discharge; and
  • Working conditions related to the safety and health of employees.

The new rule further clarifies that joint-employer status can be based on indirect control or reserved control that has never been exercised. This is a major departure from the 2020 rule, which required that joint employers have “substantial direct and immediate control” over essential terms and conditions of employment.

The new standard will take effect on February 26, 2024, and will not apply to cases filed before the effective date. For more information on the final rule: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/10/27/2023-23573/standard-for-determining-joint-employer-status

EEOC’s Proposed Enforcement Guidance on Harassment

A fresh year brings fresh guidance! On October 2023, the EEOC published a notice of Proposed Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. The EEOC has not updated its enforcement guidance on workplace harassment since 1999. The updated proposed guidance explains the legal standards for harassment and employer liability applicable to claims of harassment. If finalized, the guidance will supersede several older documents:

  • Compliance ManualSection 615: Harassment (1987);
  • Policy Guidance on Current Issues of Sexual Harassment(1990);
  • Policy Guidance on Employer Liability under Title VII for Sexual Favoritism (1990);
  • Enforcement Guidance on Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc. (1994); and
  • Enforcement Guidance on Vicarious Employer Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors(1999).

The EEOC accepted public comments through November 2023. After reviewing the public comments, the EEOC will decide whether to finalize the enforcement guidance. While not law itself, the enforcement guidance, if finalized, can be cited in court. For more information about the proposed guidance: https://www.eeoc.gov/proposed-enforcement-guidance-harassment-workplace

OSHA’s Proposed Rule to Amend Its Representatives of Employers and Employees Regulation

Be prepared to see changes in OSHA on-site inspections. Specifically, OSHA may reshape its Representatives of Employers and Employees regulation. In August 2023, OSHA published an NPRM titled “Worker Walkaround Representative Designation Process.” The NPRM proposes to allow employees to authorize an employee or a non-employee third party as their representative to accompany an OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officer (“CSHO”) during a workplace inspection, provided the CSHO determines the third party is reasonably necessary to conduct the inspection. This change aims to increase employee participation during walkaround inspections. OSHA accepted public comments through November 2023. A final rule will likely be published in 2024.

For more information about the proposed rule to amend the Representatives of Employers and Employees regulation: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/08/30/2023-18695/worker-walkaround-representative-designation-process

Preparing for 2024

While 2023 proved to be a dynamic year for Labor and Employment law, 2024 could be either transformative or stagnant. Some of the proposed regulations mentioned above could turn into final rules, causing significant changes in employment law. On the other hand, given that 2024 is an election year, some of these proposed regulations could lose priority and wither on the vine. Either way, employers should stay informed of these ever-changing issues.

© 2023 Ward and Smith, P.A.. All Rights Reserved.
       
For more news on 2024 Labor and Employment Laws, visit the NLR Labor & Employment section.

NLRB Issues Final Rule on Joint-Employer Status, Answering a Major Question No One Asked

On October 26, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or “Board”) issued its Final Rule (the “Rule”) on Joint-Employer status under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Slated to take effect on December 26, 2023, the Rule returns to and expands on the Obama era Browning-Ferris test, scrapping the NLRB’s 2020 Joint Employer test for the sole reason that the current Board disagrees with the 2020 test, and setting up a potential showdown with the Supreme Court over the “major questions” doctrine and the scope of the NLRB’s administrative authority.

The Final Rule Summarized

 Under the new Rule, any entity that shares or codetermines one or more of a group of employees’ “essential terms and conditions of employment” will be considered a joint employer of the employees along with any other entity controlling that work, that is their “primary employer.” Those “essential terms and conditions of employment” as listed in a new NLRB Fact Sheet are:

  1. wages, benefits, and other compensation;
  2. hours of work and scheduling;
  3. assignment of duties to be performed;
  4. supervision of the performance of duties;
  5. work rules and directions governing the manner, means, and methods of the performance of duties and the grounds for discipline;
  6. tenure of employment, including hiring and discharge; and
  7. working conditions related to the safety and health of employees.

The Rule is purported to be grounded in common law agency principles and will apply where control – or potential control – over any of the above terms and conditions is reserved to an entity, irrespective of whether or not such control is actually exercised and whether such control is direct or indirect. The Rule is expected to allow the Board to rely on standard contractual terms, such as those typically found in agreements between temporary agencies and other suppliers of labor and their clients, to make sweeping declarations of joint employer status, regardless of the factual circumstances.  Such findings would obligate putative joint employers to engage in collective bargaining with employee representatives over any of those essential terms and conditions of employment over which they potentially exercise control, even if such control is indirect. While the NLRB’s press release about the Rule asserts that, to make a codetermination, the Board will conduct factual analyses on a case-by-case basis, it is clear that the Rule will effectively make it much easier for the Board to designate common business relationships as instances of joint employment.

Potential Concerns and Consequences

An expanded definition of joint employment is the latest indicator of the current NLRB’s efforts to cast a wider net across the nation’s workforce, organized or not. The effects remain to be fully realized but may place more businesses directly under the Board’s jurisdiction. For example, where a non-unionized business has a relationship with an organized shop that the NLRB deems to constitute a joint employment arrangement, that non-unionized business could find itself a responding party to an unfair labor practices charge brought by representatives of the shop workers.

Accordingly, employers and their vendors or other suppliers of services and/or labor must consider how their relationships may be viewed under the Rule. Agreements should be reviewed for any language that could be construed as establishing forms of worker control that would implicate an entity as a joint employer and might benefit from the addition of language explicitly providing that such arrangements do not create an employment relationship.

Legal challenges to the Rule are expected, and the NLRB’s position may be on shaky ground following the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which called into question the validity of agency action that the Court determines to be a “transformative expansion” of administrative authority and an attempt to answer a “major question” that is better left to elected representatives in Congress rather than to the Executive Branch’s administrative agencies. To be sure, if allowed to stand, the NLRB’s efforts to establish a Joint Employer rule will have significant ripples throughout the U.S. economy. We will keep you informed as this issue winds its way through the courts.

©2023 Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. All rights reserved.
For more on NLRB’s Joint Employer Rule, visit the NLR Labor & Employment section.

Another One Bites the Dust: You Might Be Your Brother Employer’s Keeper (Again)

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has announced a final rule rescinding the Trump administration’s “Joint Employer Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act” rule, which took effect in March 2020 and provides guidance for determining when multiple employers are considered joint employers and, therefore, jointly liable for labor law violations. The repeal of the rule will likely result in more workers receiving minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and, in turn, greater legal and financial exposure for employers.

The FLSA generally requires employers to pay non-exempt workers at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked and at least time and one half the regular rate of pay for hours worked more than 40 in a workweek. Under certain circumstances, an employee of one business may be considered a joint employee of a second business. (The joint employer concept can arise in any context when one company’s workers perform work for another company, but most frequently it arises in the context of staffing agency or leased employees).  If the second business is deemed a “joint employer,” both companies might be liable to the worker for minimum wages and overtime pay under the FLSA.

The joint employer rule that became effective in March 2020 established a four-factor balancing test for determining joint employer status under the FLSA. In determining whether a second company is a joint employer of a worker, the test examines:

  1. Whether the company hires and fires the worker;
  2. Whether the company supervises and controls the worker’s work schedules or conditions of employment to a substantial degree;
  3. Whether the company determines the worker’s rate and method of payment; and
  4. Whether the company maintains the worker’s employment records.

In a news release announcing rescission of the rule, the Biden administration’s DOL concluded that the rescinded rule “included a description of joint employment contrary to statutory language and Congressional intent” and “failed to take into account the department’s prior joint employment guidance.”

The final rule repealing the prior rule becomes effective September 28, 2021. The prior rule made it more difficult for companies to be held liable as joint employers and was generally considered a positive development for the business community.

©2021 Roetzel & Andress

National Labor Relations Board Tightens Standard for Joint Employer Status

A business is a joint employer of another employer’s employees only if the two employers share or codetermine the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment, according to a recently unveiled and long-awaited final rule from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This means that a business must exercise “substantial direct and immediate control” over such issues as wages, benefits, hours of work, hiring, discharge, discipline, supervision and work direction. The rule, which takes effect on April 27, 2020, tightens the legal test the NLRB uses to determine whether workers are jointly employed by affiliate businesses, including franchisors and franchisees.

Specifically, the new rule substantially tightens the standard for joint employer status articulated by the NLRB in its 2015 Browning-Ferris decision. In that decision, the NLRB departed from a half-century’s worth of precedent in determining that it could consider employers who exercised indirect control over the terms and conditions of another employer’s employees, or who reserved the right to exercise such control, as joint employers. The new rule expressly rejects this standard, making clear that neither “indirect” control nor a reservation of right to control terms and conditions of employment is sufficient, on its own, to establish joint employer status. The new rule returns the NLRB to its pre-Browning-Ferris jurisprudence, which required actual and direct control. The new rule also notes that “sporadic, isolated, or de minimus” direct control will not be enough to warrant a finding of joint employment.

The issue of joint employer status is significant for businesses because workers and the unions that represent them can collectively bargain with joint employers and hold them jointly liable for unfair labor practices, which are violations of federal labor law. The Browning-Ferris decision, with its broader test for joint employer status, engulfed more contractors and franchisors into costly and time-consuming labor disputes and contract negotiations. By rejecting the Browning-Ferris standard, the NLRB’s new narrower test brings certainty to this area of law by ensuring that labor disputes and contract bargaining only involve those contractors and/or franchisors that exercise direct control over the employees of another employer. NLRB Chairman Jon Ring made this very point when he explained that “employers will now have certainty in structuring their business relationships, [and] employees will have a better understanding of their employment circumstances.”

This new rule is particularly important to franchisors and comes on the heels of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new joint-employer rule, which also affected franchisors. Since the Browning-Ferris decision, there has been uncertainty about how much “control” is too much. This new NLRB rule provides welcomed clarity for franchisors, and will allow franchisors to provide more operational support and guidance to franchisees, which should result in franchisees having the opportunity to run their small businesses in a manner that will make a difference in their communities. Franchisors can protect their brands through appropriate brand standards and require franchisees to meet those standards without the heightened risk of being deemed a joint employer of their franchisees’ employees.

However, franchisors must be mindful of various state joint employer regulations, which may be broader in scope than the new rule, as well as plaintiffs’ lawyers asserting claims based on control theories. Franchisors should continue to review their business models and business practices (training, technology and field support) to ensure they are not involved in the exercise of control over a franchisee’s employees. Franchisors also should appropriately address these issues in their franchise agreements and operations manuals.

In sum, the NLRB’s new joint employer test is a win for employers, returning the NLRB’s joint-employer status jurisprudence to the narrower direct and actual control standard. Under this new test, contractors and franchisors who do not want to become joint employers should be careful to avoid exercising direct control over another employer’s employees’ terms and conditions of employment, including wages and benefits. The new rule’s clarity allows businesses to know where they stand as a potential joint employer and to prepare accordingly.

© 2020 Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. All Rights Reserved.

For more on NLRB decisions, see the National Law Review Labor & Employment law section.

New NLRB Rule Defining Joint-Employer Status to Take Effect

The National Labor Relations Board has announced the issuance of its final rule governing joint-employer status. The new rule, which was first proposed in September 2018 and has been the subject of extensive public comment, will become effective April 27, 2020.

The critical elements for finding a joint-employer relationship under the new rule is the possession and the exercise of substantial direct and immediate control over the terms and conditions of employment of those employed by another employer.  The essence of the new rule is described in the Board’s February 25, 2020 press release:

To be a joint employer under the final rule, a business must possess and exercise substantial direct and immediate control over one or more essential terms and conditions of employment of another employer’s employees. The final rule defines key terms, including what are considered “essential terms and conditions of employment,” and what does, and what does not, constitute “direct and immediate control” as to each of these essential employment terms. The final rule also defines what constitutes “substantial” direct and immediate control and makes clear that control exercised on a sporadic, isolated, or de minimis basis is not “substantial.”

Evidence of indirect and/or contractually reserved control over essential employment terms may be a consideration for finding joint-employer status under the final rule, but it cannot give rise to such status without substantial direct and immediate control. Importantly, the final rule also makes clear that the routine elements of an arm’s-length contract cannot turn a contractor into a joint employer.

The new rule marks a return to a standard similar to that which the Board followed from 1984 until 2015.  In 2015, in Browning-Ferris Industries, the Board adopted a much more liberal test under which a finding that the putative joint employer possessed indirect influence and the ability (including through a reserved contractual right) to influence terms and conditions, regardless of whether the putative joint employer actually exercised such influence or control, could result in it being held to be a joint-employer of a second employer’s employee.

As a practical matter, the standard under the Board’s new rule should make it much more difficult to establish that a company is a joint-employer of a supplier, contractor, franchisee, or other company’s employees. The new rule will mean that a party claiming joint-employer status to exist will need to demonstrate with evidence that the putative joint-employer doesn’t just have a theoretical right to influence the other employer’s employees’ terms and conditions of employment, but that it has actually exercised that right in a substantial, direct and immediate manner.

This new rule is likely to make it much more difficult for unions to successfully claim that franchisors are joint-employers with their franchisees, and that companies are joint-employers of personnel employed by their contractors and contract suppliers of labor, such as leasing and temporary agencies.

©2020 Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. All rights reserved.

For more on the Joint-Employer Rule see the National Law Review Labor & Employment Law section.

“Do You Want Liability With That?” The NLRB McDonald’s Decision that could undermine the Franchise Business Model

McBrayer NEW logo 1-10-13

On July 29, 2014 the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel authorized NLRB Regional Directors to name McDonald’s Corp. as a joint employer in several complaints regarding worker rights at franchise-owned restaurants. Joint employer liability means that the non-employer (McDonald’s Corp.) can be held responsible for labor violations to the same extent as the worker’s “W-2” employer.

In the U.S., the overwhelming majority of the 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees (as is the case with most other fast-food chains). The franchise model is predicated on the assumption that the franchisee is an independent contractor – not an employee of the franchisor. Generally, the franchisor owns a system for operating a business and agrees to license a bundle of intellectual property to the franchisee so long as on the franchisee adheres to prescribed operating standards and pays franchise fees. Franchisees have the freedom to make personnel decisions and control their operating costs.

Many third parties and pro-union advocates have long sought to hold franchisors responsible for the acts or omissions of franchisees – arguing that franchisors maintain strict control on day-to-day operations and regulate almost all aspects of a franchisee’s operations, from employee training to store design. Their argument is that the franchise model allows the corporations to control the parts of the business it cares about at its franchises, while escaping liability for labor and wage violations.

The NLRB has investigated 181 cases of unlawful labor practices at McDonald’s franchise restaurants since 2012. The NLRB has found sufficient merit in at least 43 cases. Heather Smedstad, senior vice president of human resources for McDonald’s USA, called the NLRB’s decision a “radical departure” and something that “should be a concern to businessmen and women across the country.” Indeed it is, but it is important to note that General Counsel’s decision is not the same as a binding NLRB ruling and that it will be a long time before this issue is resolved, as McDonald’s Corp. will no doubt appeal any rulings.

ARTICLE BY

Luke A. Wingfield
 
OF 
McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie and Kirkland, PLLC

“Do You Want Liability With That?” The NLRB McDonald’s Decision that could undermine the Franchise Business Model

McBrayer NEW logo 1-10-13

On July 29, 2014 the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel authorized NLRB Regional Directors to name McDonald’s Corp.as a joint employer in several complaints regarding worker rights at franchise-owned restaurants. Joint employer liability means that the non-employer (McDonald’s Corp.) can be held responsible for labor violations to the same extent as the worker’s “W-2” employer.

In the U.S., the overwhelming majority of the 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees (as is the case with most other fast-food chains). The franchise model is predicated on the assumption that the franchisee is an independent contractor – not an employee of the franchisor. Generally, the franchisor owns a system for operating a business and agrees to license a bundle of intellectual property to the franchisee so long as on the franchisee adheres to prescribed operating standards and pays franchise fees. Franchisees have the freedom to make personnel decisions and control their operating costs.

Many third parties and pro-union advocates have long sought to hold franchisors responsible for the acts or omissions of franchisees – arguing that franchisors maintain strict control on day-to-day operations and regulate almost all aspects of a franchisee’s operations, from employee training to store design. Their argument is that the franchise model allows the corporations to control the parts of the business it cares about at its franchises, while escaping liability for labor and wage violations.

The NLRB has investigated 181 cases of unlawful labor practices at McDonald’s franchise restaurants since 2012. The NLRB has found sufficient merit in at least 43 cases. Heather Smedstad, senior vice president of human resources for McDonald’s USA, called the NLRB’s decision a “radical departure” and something that “should be a concern to businessmen and women across the country.” Indeed it is, but it is important to note that General Counsel’s decision is not the same as a binding NLRB ruling and that it will be a long time before this issue is resolved, as McDonald’s Corp. will no doubt appeal any rulings.

ARTICLE BY

Luke A. Wingfield
 
OF 
McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie and Kirkland, PLLC