Can you prevent employees from pursuing class actions if you have the right employment agreement? Employment agreements routinely include arbitration clauses that require employees to waive their right to pursue work-related claims through collective or class actions. Instead, employees agree to resolve disputes through individual arbitration. But the validity of these arbitration clauses is unclear … Continue Reading
Employers need to be on the lookout for instances of offensive employee speech, which may put them between a rock and a hard place as they navigate potential claims under either anti-discrimination laws or federal labor laws. You have probably heard that Google terminated an employee earlier this month for saying (among other things) that … Continue Reading
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in to support the NLRB’s finding that an employee’s profanity-ridden social media posting about his employer (and his employer’s mother) was not so offensive that it went beyond the protections of the NLRA for union-related activity. This decision again shows the wide latitude given to employees to engage … Continue Reading
The NLRB wants to stop class action waivers in employment arbitration agreements, arguing they violate the National Labor Relations Act. This issue has been raging for several years and divided federal courts. As reported in our November 2, 2015, blog post, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a class action waiver in the important Murphy Oil … Continue Reading
In August of this year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) revised its joint-employer test, which has incited much debate from employers across the country. The newly developed test permits a worker to be considered an employee of both a temp agency and the company where the worker is placed, despite the fact that the … Continue Reading
