Chad M. Horton

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In today’s episode of “They Really Made a Federal Case Out of That?” the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) rejected a union’s claim that a hotel employer was obligated to bargain its decision, or the effects of its decision, to purchase and use fluffier king size pillows in its hotel rooms. (Your tax dollars at work, my friends!)
Continue Reading Hotel Did Not Need to Bargain Over Puffier Pillows, says NLRB…

Following one federal court’s stay limited only to certain states (as discussed in our November 2021 E-Update), another federal court in Louisiana has now granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Interim Final Rule containing a vaccine mandate issued on November 5, 2021 (as discussed in our November 8, 2021 E-lert). This mandate requires workers of most federally-funded healthcare entities to receive their first shot by December 6, 2021 and their second by January 4, 2022. The injunction states explicitly that it “immediately enjoins and restrains the Government…from implementing the mandate.”
Continue Reading Court Enjoins CMS’s Vaccine Mandate for Medicare and Medicaid-Certified Providers

A National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board’) decision that was once thought to be a significant win for employer property rights may ultimately result in increased property access for off-duty contractor employees, following a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Continue Reading D.C. Circuit Opens Door to Biden Board to Expand Property Access for Off-Duty Contractor Employees

A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing officer recently recommended that the union election at an Alabama Amazon warehouse be run a second time. The hearing officer, an employee of a NLRB Regional Office, sided with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) that Amazon’s actions interfered with a fair election. Specifically, the hearing officer found that Amazon’s installation of an unmarked mailbox as a ballot drop-site that was within the view of company surveillance cameras, hiring of private police, threatening of employees, and changing county traffic lights (come on, how many companies have the pull to get county traffic lights changed?) to impede RWDSU access to voters amounted to objectionable conduct.
Continue Reading NLRB Hearing Officer Recommends Second Union Election at Amazon – But Will It Happen?

On August 12, 2021, the recently confirmed General Counsel (GC) of the National Labor Relations Board, Jennifer Abruzzo, issued her first official memo. Per an NLRB press release, GC Memo 21-04 “lays out a clear agenda…on some priorities of the Office of the General Counsel.” The memo directs NLRB field offices to submit cases addressing issues identified in the memo to the Regional Advice Branch of the Office of the General Counsel. Typically, such submissions are the first step on the path to overturning existing case law that a sitting GC seeks to change.
Continue Reading New NLRB General Counsel Signals Major Changes Ahead

As our two major political parties wage battle in statehouses around the country regarding the ways in which citizens cast their votes, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seems primed to implement electronic voting (“e-voting”) in union elections. E-voting has long been on Labor’s wish list. As we transition out of a pandemic that significantly reduced the number of manual (read: in-person, onsite) representation elections, it appears that the Democratic-controlled Board and Congress are prepared to dedicate resources to add an e-voting system to the Board’s manual and mail-ballot election processes.
Continue Reading E-Voting in Union Elections at the NLRB?

With the COVID-19 vaccine finally becoming a reality, healthcare employers, who were first to receive the vaccine for distribution to their workforce, are addressing questions of how to implement vaccination programs. Other employers are thinking about these issues as well, in preparation for the time when vaccines are more widely available. Below, we have addressed many common, and some not so common, questions about vaccines in the workplace.
Continue Reading Vaccines in the Workplace: A Practical Guide for Employers

One of the many services we provide to our clients is training on how to respond effectively to union organizing activity. In short, we provide the do’s and don’ts of how to respond lawfully to a union’s efforts to organize an employer’s workforce. During these trainings, we often stress the fine line dividing lawful and unlawful statements and conduct.
Continue Reading Here’s What Not to Do When Faced With Union Organizing Activity

In its unpublished decision in Bloomsburg Care and Rehabilitation Center, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) expressed a willingness to reconsider, and likely expand, what constitutes an alleged supervisor’s ability to “effectively recommend” discipline. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) provides that if an individual performs one of several functions, including the ability to discipline, or can “effectively recommend” one of these functions (e.g., discipline or hire), the individual is a supervisor. Under current law, which was applied by one of the Board’s Regional Directors, the Board will not find that an individual effectively recommends discipline if the recommendation is reviewed or independently investigated by upper management.
Continue Reading NLRB To Expand Definition of Effective Recommendation of Discipline?