Tampa Electric Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of TECO Energy, Inc. d/b/a TECO Peoples Gas, 364 NLRB No. 124 (September 16, 2016) The employer violated: Section 8(a)(1) by asking an employee why he wanted to unionize and promising the employee a wage increase to encourage him to abandon his support for union representation; Section 8(a)(5),...
Read MoreBlog
NLRB Decisions August 27 – September 2, 2016
United States Postal Service, 362 NLRB No. 116 (August 27, 2016) The Board clarified the appropriate standard, under Independent Stave Co., 287 NLRB 740, 743 (1987), for evaluating orders approving and incorporating settlement terms proposed by a Respondent over objections of the General Counsel and Charging Party: whether the order provides a full remedy for...
Read MoreHawaii Employment Law Decisions September 18, 2016 to September 24, 2016 – Jeffrey S. Harris
District court erred by dismissing complaint for violation of Title VII and Age Discrimination Act, because complaint and attached exhibits did not obviously state when former employee learned of the alleged discriminatory acts and whether his contact with the investigator was timely. Daniels v. Donahoe, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 17268 (9th Cir. Sept. 21, 2016)....
Read MoreHawaii Employment Law Decisions September 11, 2016 to September 17, 2017 – Jeffrey S. Harris
District court did not err by granting summary judgment against race and gender discrimination claim, because employee did not show employer treated similarly situated employees who were not a member of his class differently. Lal Dev v. EFB Patrick R. Donahoe, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 17011 (9th Cir. Sept. 16, 2016). District court erred by...
Read MoreHawaii Employment Law Decisions September 4, 2016 to September 10, 2017 – Jeffrey S. Harris
District court erred by deciding whether drivers' arbitration agreements were enforceable, because that question was clearly delegated to the arbitrator. Court venue provisions for actions to enforce arbitration agreements and obtain other remedies did not make the arbitration agreements ambiguous. The drivers' right to opt out of the agreements prevented them from being procedurally unconscionable....
Read MoreHawaii Employment Law Decisions August 28, 2016 to September 3, 2017 – Jeffrey S. Harris
District court did not err by certifying class of domestic farm workers who claimed farm employer violated Agricultural Workers Protection Act by failing to inform them of the availability of agricultural work performed by temporary foreign workers under the federal H-2A visa program, and failed to pay the domestic workers the same wage as foreign...
Read MoreNLRB Decisions Week of August 22-26, 2016
Public Service Company of New Mexico, 364 NLRB No. 86 (August 22, 2016) The employer violated Section 8(a)(5) and (1) by unilaterally implementing a policy limiting the union's access to its facility and announcing a change to its respiratory fit-test rule and by failing to provide requested information, but did not violate Section 8(a)(5) and...
Read MoreNLRB Decisions Week of August 15-19, 2016
In Retro Environmental, Inc./Green Jobworks, LLC, 05-RC-153468, 364 NLRB No. 70 (August 16, 2016), the Board applied its Browning-Ferris standard for joint employers and ordered an election, ruling the staffing agency and its construction company client were joint employers even though the companies' projects were scheduled to end shortly at the time of the hearing. ...
Read MoreHawaii Employment Law Decisions August 21, 2016 to August 27, 2016 – Jeffrey S. Harris
Court of Appeals was skeptical of disability insurer's denial of benefits, because independent physician consultants on which insurer relied performed substantial numbers of reviews for and received significant compensation from the insurer. Insurer therefore had burden of maintaining records on the reviewer's findings on claims to show their neutrality in practice. Insurer abused its discretion...
Read MoreHawaii Employment Law Decisions August 14, 2016 to August 20, 2016 - Jeffrey S. Harris
U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Seller's employees were not entitled to past service credit under the plain terms of the buyer's retirement plan. Seller's employees could seek reformation of the plan based on claim buyer breached fiduciary duty by not adequately informing them they were not entitled to past service credit. Seller's employees could...
Read More