Articles and Blogs

One day after issuing a controversial decision regarding employees’ rights to use an employer’s email system for union organizing (detailed in this blog), the NLRB has adopted its final rule significantly shortening the timeline for union elections in the private sector. We have blogged extensively on the development of this rule as can be... READ MORE

Rejecting and overruling its 2007 decision in Register Guard that limited employee rights to use employer email systems for union organizing, the NLRB, in a three to two decision, significantly broadened the scope of private employee rights to use an employer’s email system for union organizing purposes and other protected activity.  The decision focused on... READ MORE

Does an employer have to pay its employees when it requires them to stand in line every day for up to 25 minutes waiting to go through security screening at the end of the day?  It seems like that’s a lot of time and that it might be fair to compensate those employees for... READ MORE

On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced the Immigration Accountability Executive Action, a series of steps directed toward reforming the United States’ immigration system. Although the media’s attention has primarily focused on provisions relating to deferred action for unauthorized persons, the measures also contain several initiatives aimed at improving the nation’s employment-based immigration system.... READ MORE

The Department of Labor published regulations last week that will make it unlawful for federal contractors to discriminate in employment based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  The regulations will become effective in early April, 120 days after being published in the Federal Register.  READ MORE

When can a hospital bar access to the premises when employees are off duty?  According to the NLRB in a recent case, it will depend on the hospital’s rule, how it is written and how much discretion the hospital has in interpreting the meaning of “hospital-related business.” Cafeteria Operator in the Hospital The hospital... READ MORE

Although the NLRB has been very protective of employees’ rights to comment on Facebook, sometimes employees can go too far.  In this recent case, the legal line between protected activity and unprotected activity was crossed when two employees openly planned to be insubordinate. READ MORE

The four-year battle over Indiana’s Right-to-Work Law came to a close on November 6, 2014 when the Indiana Supreme Court issued its unanimous 5 – 0 decision upholding the constitutionality of the law passed by the General Assembly amid union protests in 2012.  See our blog Right-to-Work: Now There are Twenty Three that discusses the history... READ MORE

Was Job Restructuring Reasonable?  The Jury Will Decide A hairdresser at a nursing home quit her job following surgery when her boss failed to consider assigning her duties of transporting wheelchair bound residents to the beauty salon to orderlies.  She filed an ADA suit claiming a failure to reasonably accommodate her disability.  The nursing... READ MORE

Michigan, like nearly half of the states in the nation, now embraces the medical use of marijuana in certain situations. Like most state medical marijuana laws, Michigan’s law (enacted by referendum) does not require accommodation of an employee who is under the influence of medical marijuana in the workplace. Yet a decision issued on... READ MORE