The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has had a busy year of significant decisions for employers, including one in Entergy Mississippi, addressing the supervisory status of certain electric utility transmission and distribution dispatchers and resulting ineligibility to vote in a union election. This important decision is discussed further in our recent edition of Labor & Employment NOW.
Meanwhile, the Board’s recent proposed rulemaking on union election procedures is the latest sign that the Republican-majority Board is now in high gear. This LawFlash stresses that employers should stay tuned to the Board’s regulatory and decisional authority in the second half of 2019. Of particular interest to the energy industry is the Board’s upcoming second round of rulemaking on union election procedures, as well as the final version of the NLRB’s rules on its joint employer standard to determine when an entity has an employer relationship with the employees of another business, impacting relationships such as vendors and onsite contractors.
Our US labor/management relations team will continue to track the Board’s increasingly business-friendly approach in 2019.