In my blog post last week, It’s Football (Unionizing) Season…, I tackled the topic of whether football players who receive athletic scholarships to play for a private college or university might be considered employees – and then have the right to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act. As I explained, the National Labor Relations Board seems to be moving the ball towards a finding that those who receive scholarships are thus being paid to provide sports services to the school, meaning that they are employees. But, as my partner Mark Swerdlin noted in a previous blog post , this approach means that non-scholarship players are penalized because they are not being paid and therefore cannot be employees. Unless, as he suggested (with tongue firmly in cheek), they sue for unpaid wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act… Continue Reading Wait – College Football Players Really Are Suing for Pay?
Maryland Employers Beware – State Wage Laws Do Not Incorporate Federal Portal-to-Portal Act and Its Exclusions from Compensation
Maryland’s highest court has ruled that the federal Portal-to-Portal Act has not been adopted or incorporated into Maryland’s Wage and Hour Law, Wage Payment and Collection Law, or the corresponding state regulations – meaning that employers may be responsible for more wages for their Maryland employees under state law than under federal law.
Continue Reading Maryland Employers Beware – State Wage Laws Do Not Incorporate Federal Portal-to-Portal Act and Its Exclusions from Compensation
NLRB Expands Scope of Mandatory Arbitration Agreements
The National Labor Relations Board has now addressed the use of mandatory arbitration agreements following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, which upheld the enforceability of arbitration agreements containing waivers of the right to bring class or collective actions over employment-related disputes, rejecting the NLRB’s then-position that such waivers violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as discussed in our prior E-lert.
Continue Reading NLRB Expands Scope of Mandatory Arbitration Agreements
Maryland Labor and Employment News
Some interesting tidbits of Maryland labor and employment news:
- According to the Daily Record, Pepsi Bottling Group and a group of employees have settled an overtime compensation case in the U.S. District Court of Maryland. As part of the settlement, about 60 employees will share an award of $187,275, with attorneys’ fees and administrative