The Hill reports that the National Labor Relations Board is delivering a flurry of wins to businesses now that it has a Republican majority under President Trump.

In recent days, the independent board tasked with enforcing fair labor practices and collective bargaining rights overruled three Obama-era rules in a series of 3-2 rulings, writes reporter Lydia Wheeler.

One of the rules, which employers had opposed for years, was a controversial NLRB decision that changed the definition of a joint-employer. That rule could have put employers on the hook for labor law violations committed by their subcontractors in some cases.

Read The Hill article.

American labor laws normally protect workers from retaliation for unionizing, but billionaire CEO Joe Ricketts seems to have used a dramatic exception when he closed his news websites after some workers voted to unionize: A business may always close its operations entirely.

Francie Diep, a reporter for the Pacific Standard, writes that all of the publcations’ offices — including those in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, which had not voted to unionize — are now closed.

“If lawyers decide to pursue a case charging that Ricketts acted illegally, they’ll have to prove that some part of the business is still operating — say, if Ricketts were tied to another media company somehow — or that, after the shutdown, Ricketts opened up a similar business elsewhere,” Diep writes.

Read the Pacific Standard article.

The CEO of a group of digital local news sites shut down the publications a week after reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist voted to join a union, reports The New York Times.

Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, owned the sites.

“For DNAinfo and Gothamist, the staff’s vote to join the Writers Guild of America East was just part of the decision to close the company, write Andy Newman and John Leland.

“The decision by the editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful,” said  a spokeswoman for DNAinfo.

Read the NYT article.

The New York Times reports that, as National Football League team owners consider President Trump’s call to fire players who refuse to stand for the national anthem, they have stumbled into one of the most consequential debates in today’s workplace: How far can workers go in banding together to address problems related to their employment?

Reporter Noam Scheiber writes that, since Trump’s call for firing players, their demonstrations now could constitute labor activity that’s federally protected, explains Matthew Bodie, a law professor at St. Louis University who is a former attorney for the labor board.

“If they’re standing up for other players’ rights to kneel in the context of their job and keep their job, it seems to me to be protected concerted activity,” Bodie said.

Read the NYT article.

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A former Fiat Chrysler executive has been charged with looting a training center for blue-collar workers by giving $1.2 million through a variety of ways to a UAW leader, his wife and other senior union officials, according to an Associated Press report.

The ex-exective is Al Iacobelli, who was indicted in an alleged conspiracy involving the late United Auto Workers vice president General Holiefield and Holiefield’s widow, Monica Morgan.

“The indictment describes a multiyear scheme to reward Holiefield and Morgan with first-class travel, designer clothing and jewelry. A $262,000 mortgage on their home in suburban Detroit was paid off, according to the grand jury,” write Ed White and Tom Krisher. “Iacobelli treated himself to more than $350,000 for a Ferrari, the government alleged.”

Read the AP article.

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Akerman LLP has expanded its Labor & Employment Practice Group with partners Angela Hart-Edwards in Washington, D.C., Colin Barnacle in Denver, Denise Gavica Perez in Miami and Rory McEvoy in New York. They work with employers in the healthcare, hospitality and restaurant sectors, among others, the firm said in a release.

“Angela, Colin, Denise and Rory are exceptional lawyers who bolster Akerman’s national strengths in employment litigation and compliance,” said Eric Gordon, chair of Akerman’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. “Employers today are faced with a new set of uncertainties brought on by significant shifts in U.S. employment and immigration policies. The expansion of our team in New York, Denver, Miami and Washington, D.C., advances our ability to problem-solve on the ground with our clients while serving their interests nationally.”

The release continues:

Angela Hart-Edwards
Hart-Edwards is a former Trial Attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. She also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. She focuses her practice in the areas of employment and civil rights law, government investigations and corporate compliance, and federal sector EEO employment law. With more than 20 years of experience as a trial lawyer, Hart-Edwards represents corporations and their executives in labor and employment related litigation, class/collective actions, agency proceedings, arbitrations and mediations and investigations. She also provides EEO services and defensive federal sector employment litigation services to agencies.

Hart-Edwards regularly advises management on litigation avoidance, negotiates and prepares employment and related agreements, provides human resource and EEO regulatory compliance counseling and training, and serves as corporate diversity counselor. Her clients represent a diverse range of industries including manufacturing, logistics, utilities, higher education institutions, technology, nonprofit, government, healthcare, staffing, retail, and hospitality. She also serves as General Counsel to the Commissioners of the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights and as an advisor to The Council for Federal EEO and Civil Rights Executives.

Colin Barnacle
Barnacle focuses his practice on labor and employment litigation, compliance counseling, corporate governance counseling and investigations, and non-compete and trade secret enforcement. He regularly advises and defends clients in response to the EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), including systemic discrimination investigations and related class actions. He has represented employers in all aspects of employment law before state and federal agencies and courts, including wage and hour collective/class actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Title VII discrimination and sexual harassment, as well as actions under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and state workers compensation laws. He is also experienced in Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) compliance, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) compliance during mass layoffs, and employee-related issues surrounding corporate transactions. Barnacle represents food companies throughout the supply chain, including growers/shippers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and food service businesses.

Barnacle brings years of in-house legal experience having served as Division General Counsel for Americas Fresh Foods, The WhiteWave Foods Company (NYSE: WWAV), a leading consumer packaged food and beverage company, and as Assistant General Counsel for The Gates Corporation, a global diversified manufacturer of industrial and automotive products.

Denise Gavica Perez
Gavica Perez focuses her practice on corporate immigration matters, with a strong emphasis in the healthcare sector. She routinely counsels hospitals seeking to obtain non-immigrant and immigrant visas for employees including physicians, nurses, residents, pharmacists, fellows, medical technologists, as well as staffing agencies tasked with recruiting healthcare professionals. She also has 18 years of practice representing companies within the financial services, technology, sports and entertainment, hospitality, higher-education, construction and engineering sectors.

Gavica Perez regularly provides legal counsel to entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals regarding investment-based immigration, including the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, and she advises clients on the full range of immigrant visas, labor certifications, and U.S. citizenship matters. She has experience managing the immigration compliance programs for multinational corporations and institutions engaged in a wide range of activities and industries, including financial services, technology, sports and entertainment, higher-education, construction and engineering. She also has represented companies in connection with Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) audits, and Department of Labor/Wage and Hour Division immigration-related investigations.

Rory McEvoy
McEvoy focuses his practice on labor and employment matters, including litigation in federal and state courts and agencies. He routinely handles matters involving collective bargaining, arbitrations, unfair labor practices and union representation proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He also represents clients in all aspects of the employment relationship, including non-compete litigation, breach of employment contracts, wage and hour matters and defamation.

McEvoy represents many of New York’s large hospitals and healthcare systems. He also represents clients in other sectors, including financial services, philanthropic religious organizations, technology and educational institutions, among others.

Akerman has welcomed 17 lawyers to its Labor & Employment Practice Group in less than 15 months, expanding nationally with additions in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando and Washington, D.C. Other notable arrivals include Immigration Planning & Compliance Practice Chair Maria Casablanca in Miami; employment litigators Bran Noonan and Sarir Silver in New York, Lillian Chaves Moon in Orlando and Rachel Schumacher in Los Angeles.

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Employers who want to challenge their unfair labor practice complaints may want to delay their cases from being heard, if possible, until after November, recommends a labor lawyer, in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits powers of acting presidential appointees.

Allen Smith, writing for the Society for Human Resource Management, explains implications of the ruling, which found that the acting National Labor Relations Board general counsel did not have the authority to continue in that role once the president nominated him to be confirmed by the Senate to be general counsel.

That means that companies that have objected to the authority of Acting GC Lafe Solomon after he was nominated can challenge any unfair labor practice charge issued against them following his nomination January 2011, according to Phil Wilson, president and general counsel with the Labor Relations Institute in Broken Arrow, Okla.

Read the SHRM article.

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A Harris County jury has delivered a $5.3 million verdict against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for wrongly disparaging Professional Janitorial Service of Houston when the company refused to recognize the union without a secret ballot by its employees. The judge added $2.5 million in prejudgement interest for a total of $7.8 million owed to the company.

According to a post on the website of Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., the law firm representing Professional Janitorial Service:

The case was filed 10 years ago by Professional Janitorial based on claims that SEIU issued an onslaught of false statements to try to harm the company for refusing to give in to the union’s demands. In the four-week trial, jurors heard evidence that SEIU officials systematically lied about the janitorial service to its customers and caused the company to lose millions of dollars in business. The evidence showed union members rejoiced and took credit for causing the janitorial business to lose some of its customers.

Attorneys Nathan Campbell, Adam Milasincic and firm co-founder John Zavitsanos of Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA, represented Professional Janitorial. Mr. Zavitsanos told the jury that SEIU is “an evil, evil organization that used an intimidating campaign of extortion to try to run the janitorial service out of business.”

See a video on AZA’s website.

A recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board attempts to define further the boundaries of protected speech under the National Labor Relations Act, reports Seyfarth Shaw in its Employment Law Lookout blog.

Writers Erin Dougherty Foley and Craig B. Simonsen explain that the initial question in Laborers’ International Union of North America and Mantell was whether the union restrained or coerced Frank Mantell in the exercise of a Section 7 right. The union member posted comments on a Facebook page that criticized the Union for allowing a Niagara Falls city councilman, running for mayor, to obtain a journeyman’s book.

The union tried Mantell and fined him $5,000, as well as suspending his membership for 24 months. After an appeal, the International Union directed the local to dismiss charges against Mantell.

An NLRB Administrative Law Judge found that Mantell’s Facebook posts were protected under the National Labor Relations Act.

Read the article.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has continued its assault on businesses and their ability to legitimately protect their computer systems and information against unauthorized non-business use by employees, writes Shawn E. Tuma, in Cybersecurity Business Law.

Tuma is a cybersecurity and data protection partner at Scheef & Stone, LLP.

“On May 3, 2016, an NLRB Administrative Law Judge struck down as overbroad a Computer Use Policy in Ceasars Entertainment Corporation d/b/a Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino (NLRB Docket Sheet). The policy, titled Use of Company Systems, Equipment, and Resources, was part of the company handbook and stated that computer resources may not be used to do several things that were listed out and is standard in many similar policies,” he writes in his article.

Read the article.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would have to spend an additional $4.95 billion if it were to raise the minimum wage for its hourly employees in the United States to $15 per hour from the current $10 per hour, according to an estimate by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research, Reuters is reporting.

Study found that 1.1 million of the big retailer’s 1.5 million employees are paid hourly wages. An estimated 979,000 employees would get an increase if Wal-Mart went to $15 per hour.

Labor groups have been demanding a $15 minimum wage for the company’s workers, and the “Fight for Fifteen” movement has been a topic of discussion during the U.S. presidential campaign, reports Nandita Bose.

Read the article.

Masimo Corp. founder and CEO Joe Kiani

The top 500 chief executive officers in American companies earned 340 times the average worker’s wage last year, taking home $12.4m on average, according to an analysis by the AFL-CIO, reports The Guardian.

The union’s analysis found that the pay of executives leading the S&P 500 index of top companies actually dipped last year. The figure in 2014 for the same group was 373 times more than their workers, earning on average $13.5m.

“The marginal drop in pay comes despite some eye-watering payouts for the three highest-paid CEOs – Masimo Corporation’s Joe Kiani, Timothy Walbert of Horizon Pharma and Gamco Investors’ Mario Gabelli – who took home nearly $3bn between them, according to the AFL-CIO,” the Guardian story says.

The average production worker who does not hold a supervisory role,earned about $36,900 a year in 2015.

Read the article.