Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

Labor and Employment counsel Sharon Goodwyn was elected as Chair to the Board of Directors of the Hampton Roads Community Foundation.  Sharon is the first African American and the first woman to serve as chair of the foundation. 

The Hampton Roads Community Foundation focuses on making lives better “through leadership, philanthropy, and civic engagement.”

Sharon is a long time active member in the community serving on several collegiate and community Boards.  She is also a past President and member of the Board for the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore.  In ...

Labor and Employment partner, Roland Juarez, has been featured in the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2022 Leaders of Influence: Top Litigators & Trial Lawyers list.

The list recognizes 76 litigators chosen by the Los Angeles Business Journal as “lawyers who go to the proverbial mat to fight for their clients before judges and jury [and] have their own unique set of skills.”  Roland was recognized alongside Los Angeles partner Anne Marie Mortimer.  This is the fourth consecutive year for both Roland and Anne Marie.

Roland handles high-stakes labor and employment cases for some of ...

Disfavor toward employer/employee nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) has been an increasingly popular sentiment expressed by state legislatures over the last few years, and 2022 has seen the trend continue.  Legislation in some states may void and make unenforceable certain employer/employee nondisclosure agreements; it may prohibit employers from requiring employees to enter into such agreements; or it may outright prohibit employers from executing the agreements, for example in employment contracts and separation agreements.  Just over halfway through 2022, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, and Washington have issued or amended state laws voiding, prohibiting, or restricting employer/employee nondisclosure agreements.

San Francisco has significantly expanded its Family Friendly Workplace Ordinance to guarantee flexible or predictable work arrangements for employees with qualifying caregiver responsibilities when the employee provides notice of their preferred arrangement, unless the employer can demonstrate an undue hardship to the employer.

As we previously reported, the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to resolve a circuit court split in Robyn Morgan v. Sundance, Inc. (No. 21-328), regarding whether a party must prove that it was prejudiced when arguing that the other party waived its right to arbitration by failing to compel arbitration at the outset of litigation. 

Employers across numerous industries may soon face additional recordkeeping and reporting obligations based on a new rule proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

HuntonAK labor and employment partner Emily Burkhardt Vicente was selected as a 2022 visionary in the Business of Law: Trends, Updates and Visionaries magazine produced by the Los Angeles Times for the second consecutive year.

On June 24, 2022, the NLRB sought an order forcing an employer who refused to negotiate with a certified union to pay back wages and benefits to employees that they allegedly could have earned absent the delay in bargaining during the time the employer appealed the NLRB’s certification of the union as the exclusive bargaining representative in federal court. In Pathway Vet Alliance, LLC, the General Counsel for the NLRB made the common allegation that the employer violated 8(a)(5) and (1) of the NLRA by refusing to recognize and bargain with a disputed but  certified union representative of its employees. What is noteworthy about this case is that Counsel for the General Counsel’s Motion for Summary Judgment urged the NLRB to “use this case as a vehicle to overrule its decision in Ex-Cell-O Corp.” and order the employer to “make the bargaining-unit employees whole for the lost opportunity to engage in collective bargaining.”