On February 21, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued a decision finding that Home Depot violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) by using Home Depot’s dress code to require an employee to remove the acronym “BLM,” an initialism for “Black Lives Matter,” from the Employee’s work uniform. The decision
Workplace Trends
DOL Rolls Out Final Rule on Independent Contractors under the FLSA
By Austin Wolfe on
Posted in Wage & Hour, Workplace Trends
On January 9, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a long-awaited Final Rule that addresses when a worker is properly classified as an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”). Under its new Rule, independent contractors are characterized as those workers who, as a matter of economic reality, are not…
Just When You Thought You Were All Zippered Up . . .The NLRB Issues a New Decision on Zipper Clauses
By Jen Will on
Posted in Unions, Workplace Trends
If you are gearing up for union negotiations in 2024, do not miss the opportunity to review current and past practices that may not have been incorporated into expiring collective bargaining agreements. Trust me, it will be worth the effort to dig up and review all of the side letters, settlements and memoranda of agreement…
Chat GPT and OpenAI – What is it and will it impact Human Resources?
By Adam Santucci on
Posted in Workplace Trends
We have posted about employer use of Artificial Intelligence, AI, and the emerging legal issues associated with such tools, and no doubt, AI is going to continue to be a hot topic. The growth of AI tools and their usage across industries has been explosive.
Recently, we attended a Webinar on Chat GPT and learned…
Bare Minimum Mondays – An Exercise in Self-Sabotage
By Langdon Ramsburg on
Posted in Workplace Trends
After the pandemic began to ease, and labor availability was the lowest in recent history, many employees found themselves working more and more to fill the gaps in the workforce. That led to the trend popularized a year ago called “quiet quitting.” Under its tamest definition, quiet quitting was/is a practice where employees only did…
NLRB General Counsel Enters the Discussion on AI in the Workplace
By Adam Santucci on
Posted in Workplace Trends
We previously posted about employer use of Artificial Intelligence, AI, and the emerging legal issues associated with such tools. Recently, the National Labor Relations Board General Counsel issued GC Memorandum 23-02, which outlined her view that the use of electronic monitoring and artificial intelligence can run afoul of the National Labor Relations Act. The memo…
Imminent and Substantial: The Third Circuit Holds That the Leak of Personal Information onto the Dark Web is Sufficient to Establish an “Injury-In-Fact”
By Devin Chwastyk & Gregory Archibald on
Posted in Workplace Privacy, Workplace Trends
A recent decision from the Third Circuit suggests that the leak of information onto the Dark Web provides standing to class action plaintiffs in data breach litigation. In Clemens v. ExecuPharm, Inc., 48 F.4th 146 (3d Cir. 2022), the Defendant employer suffered a data breach that permitted a ransomware gang to steal sensitive information…
Tesla Violates Federal Labor Law with “Work Shirts” Rule
By Gregory Archibald on
The National Labor Relations Board has held that Telsa must allow employees to wear shirts with a union insignia while on the job. The decision is certainly a learning opportunity for employers and a strong signal of the approach to these issues likely to be taken by the Biden Board. Let’s look at the facts.…
CDC Further Relaxes COVID-19 Isolation and Mask Guidance: What Employers Need to Know
On August 11, 2022, the CDC issued new guidance regarding isolation and masking for individuals exposed to COVID-19. According to the CDC, high levels of immunity and the availability of COVID-19 prevention and management tools have reduced the risk for medically significant illness. While employers still must traverse through the complicated web of COVID-19 mitigation…
OSHA Withdraws COVID-19 Vaccination or Testing ETS
By Andrew L. Levy & Bill Boak on
Posted in Workplace Trends
As explained in our previous post, on January 13, 2022, the United States Supreme Court blocked the OSHA vaccination or testing Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) pending full consideration of the matter by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, OSHA is withdrawing the ETS, effective January 26, 2022.…