NLRB's Proposed New Joint Employer Rule: What To Do Now To Manage The Risk

• Published date: 21 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Employee Benefits & Compensation, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations
• Law Firm: Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone P.L.C.
• Author: Ahmad Chehab and Robert T. Zielinski

On September 7, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would, if adopted, make it much easier for the NLRB to find a company to be a "joint employer" of persons directly employed by its contractors, vendors, suppliers and franchisees. The consequences of a joint employer finding are significant and can lead to: liability for unfair practices committed by the direct employer; a duty to bargain with a union representing the direct employer's employees; exposure to liability for one's own conduct that fails to take into account the indirect employer relationship and spread of a union from the direct employer's employees to the indirect employer.

Joint-employer theory creates far more risk for employers than related doctrines such as single employer or alter ego because, unlike those theories, joint employer status does not require any common ownership or corporate control. Two companies operating entirely at arm's length can be found joint employers.

The major proposed change relates to the degree of influence that an indirect employer must have to justify a finding of single employer status. Under the current NLRB standard, the indirect employer must actually exercise "immediate and direct" control over key terms of employment, normally limited to wages, benefits, hours and termination.

The proposed rule relaxes that standard in three key ways. First, it eliminates the actually exercise requirement and states that possession of even unused authority can be sufficient.

Second, it does away with the immediate and direct requirement so that influence exercised by the indirect employer through the direct employer can be used to support a finding.

Third, it expands, beyond the list enumerated in the current rule, the types of employment terms control of which will justify a finding of joint employer status. The Obama Board had adopted the currently proposed standard by an NLRB decision, Browning-Ferris Inds. 362 NLRB No. 186 (2015). However, that decision was overturned by the Trump...