Following my post last week on the EEOC’s latest pronouncement on independent contractor status, it seemed appropriate to follow up with the National Labor Relations Board’s most recent activity on this issue. The Board’s Office of the General Counsel (OGC) released an advice memorandum in which it first reviews the Board’s test for independent contractor status (which is, of course, different than that of the EEOC) and then goes on to assert that the misclassification of employees as independent contractors is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. (Curiously, it appears that the OGC actually issued the memo in a pending case, Pacific 9 Transportation Inc., back on December 18, 2015, but it only recently released it to the public on August 26, 2016. I suppose that the Board realized that this is an issue of significant interest to employers!)
Continue Reading NLRB on Independent Contractor Status