United States: joint-employer status is ‘back in business’

A key ruling dating from December 2017 by the Republican dominated NLRB federal agency (National Labor Relations Board) on joint-employer status has been thrown out, because one of the five voting members had a conflict of interest and never should have voted. In a report, the inspector general examining the case remarked that there had been ‘a serious and flagrant problem and/or deficiency’. Trump appointee board member William Emanuel has subsequently had to recuse himself and the rules of the game now revert to the Browning-Ferris standard during the Obama era.
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Backstory. At the end of 2017, President Trump finally designated his candidates for NLRB board membership. Republicans had 3 votes and thus a majority. They used this majority position to overturn a highly controversial joint-employer standard that had been established during former president Obama’s tenure. At that time in 2015, the then Democrat majority NLRB had examined the Browning–Ferris case. The waste-treatment specialist had at that time been working with a Californian recycling...

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