Our colleague Steven M. Swirsky, a Member of the Firm at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Management Memo blog that will be of interest to many of our readers in the retail industry: “NLRB Argues 'Misclassification' as an Independent Contractor Is Unfair Labor Practice.”
Following is an excerpt:
In a further incursion into the area of the gig and new age economy, the Regional Director for the National Labor Relations Board’s Los Angeles office has issued an unfair labor practice complaint alleging that it is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”) for an employer to misclassify an employee as an independent contractor. …
The issuance of the complaint in this case comes less than a month after the Board’s General Counsel issued General Counsel Memorandum 16-01, Mandatory Submissions to Advice, identifying the types of cases that reflected “matters that involve General Counsel initiatives and/or priority areas of the law and labor policy.” Among the top priorities are “Cases involving the employment status of workers in the on-demand economy,” and “Cases involving the question of whether the misclassification of employees as independent contractors,” which as reflected in the IBT complaint the General Counsel contends violates Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.