Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

In Cordúa Restaurants, Inc., 368 NLRB No. 43 (2019), the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) issued its first major decision following the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Epic Systems, addressing a number of issues of first impression and providing guidance on the permissible scope and implementation of class action waivers.  

 In Cordúa, a group of employees had filed a collective action under the FLSA.  In response, the employer promulgated and maintained a revised arbitration agreement, requiring employees to agree not to opt in to class or collective actions.  In distributing the revised agreement, the employer explained that employees would be removed from the work schedule if they declined to sign it.  In addition, another employee was discharged for filing a class action wage lawsuit against the employer and discussing wage issues with his fellow employees.

The EEOC recently published guidance under its FAQ page regarding the question of how to report nonbinary gender employees on the annual EEO-1 report.  The EEO-1 report is a yearly survey that employers must complete and submit to the agency which requires the employer to identify characteristics of its workforce such as race/ethnicity and sex.  This survey does not allow the employer or the affected employee to abstain from responding, which creates difficult decisions for the employer who must fill-in-the-blank when an employee declines to self-identify.

In a case of first impression, the Third Circuit rejected the view of the United States Department of Labor, ruling that incentive payments from third parties are not necessarily included in the calculation of an employee’s overtime rate.

In Secretary United States Department of Labor v. Bristol Excavating, Inc., No. 17-3663, 2019 WL 3926937 (3d Cir. Aug. 20, 2019) (“Bristol”), the Court of Appeals overturned a District Court’s order holding that all incentive payments made by third parties must be included in an employee’s overtime rate under the Federal Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The unanimous Third Circuit panel held that the understanding of the employer and employee determines whether third-party payments should be included in the overtime rate.

The National Labor Relations Board has issued the first part of its planned series of revisions to labor union election procedures.  The revisions arrive five years after the Obama-era Board’s controversial 2014 changes that created the so-called “ambush election” procedures.

On August 12, a three-member majority, over a one-member dissent, issued a 113-page proposed rule that would modify three of the Board’s election processes: (1) its handling of “blocking charges,” (2) the restriction on elections after an employer’s voluntary recognition of a union, and (3) the standard for contractually-negotiated recognition of a union in the construction industry.

The United States District Court for the Western District of New York recently granted an early dismissal of a class action lawsuit prior to class certification.  Mandala v. NTT Data, Inc., 18-CV-6591 CJS, 2019 WL 3237361, at *1 (W.D.N.Y. July 18, 2019). The plaintiffs in Mandala were two African-American men who applied for and were offered jobs with the defendant employer.  After the employer conducted a criminal background check on the plaintiffs and found they each had a felony criminal conviction, the employer withdrew their job offers.  The plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against the employer alleging claims for disparate impact race discrimination under Title VII, and violations of New York state laws prohibiting criminal history discrimination and regulating the background check process.

On July 11, 2019, the House Financial Services Committee, led by Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), considered The Restricting Use of Credit Checks For Employment Decisions Act (the “Act”) as one of four bills designed to reform the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the credit reporting system.

After a nearly six-year legal battle, the Fifth Circuit has struck down the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 2012 Enforcement Guidance on the consideration of criminal history in employment decisions.  On August 6, a three-judge panel held that the Guidance was a substantive rule the EEOC had no authority to issue and that the EEOC can no longer enforce the Guidance or treat it as binding in any respect.

Yesterday, Governor Cuomo signed the last of several bills that massively overhauls New York State’s discrimination and harassment laws.  The changes, some of which are effective immediately, are explained in more detail here.

The main takeaways are as follows:

As California braces for wildfire season, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (“CalOSHA”) approved an emergency regulation on July 30, 2019, that requires California employers to monitor air quality for particle pollution, and reduce workers exposure to the potential harmful pollutants from wildfire smoke.

What Is Particle Pollution or Particle Matter?

The Air Quality Index (“AQI”) is calculated for four major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. The new regulation is aimed at protecting workers from certain particle pollution, also called particulate matter or PM. There are two types of PM – fine particles (2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, referred to as PM2.5) and course particles (particles between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in diameter, referred to as PM10). The new regulation is directed only at the fine particles, or PM2.5, which are produced from all types of combustion, including wildfires. 

On June 5, 2019, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak signed into law Assembly Bill No. 132 (“A.B. 132” or the “new law”), which is the first state law to curb pre-employment marijuana drug tests.  The new law has two primary effects: 1) it makes it unlawful for Nevada employers to fail or refuse to hire a prospective employee because the applicant submitted to a screening test and the results of the test indicate the presence of marijuana; and 2) it provides employees who test positive for marijuana with the right to, at their own expense, rebut the original test results by submitting an additional screening test within the first 30 days of employment.