The Practical NLRB Advisor: Winter 2020

Ogletree Deakins’ Traditional Labor Relations Practice Group is pleased to announce the publication of the winter 2020 issue of the Practical NLRB Advisor. This special double issue offers readers a thorough year in review of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) activity in 2019. Despite operating without a full complement of five members, the Board had a very productive year. The Trump Board decided a series of significant cases as it continued to considerably alter the policy course set by its predecessor Board.

The NLRB made considerable progress during 2019 in addressing and clarifying many of the decisional overreaches of the previous NLRB. In addition to providing needed clarification regarding the right of an employer to control access to its property, the agency overturned a number of controversial decisions handed down by the Obama Board, sharply changing course in a number of critical areas of Board law. The Board also reached out, in a few instances, to overturn more long-standing precedent.

This issue of the Practical NLRB Advisor also discusses the NLRB’s ambitious rulemaking agenda, most notably, the issuance of a final rule revising the controversial 2014 “quickie election” rule. Lastly, as the winter issue went to press, the NLRB released its final rule on joint employers under which, “an entity is a joint employer of a separate employer’s employees only if the two employers share or codetermine the employees’ essential terms or conditions of employment.” We will provide a detailed analysis and guidance on the Board’s final joint employer rule, which takes effect on April 27, 2020, in the forthcoming issue of the Practical NLRB Advisor.