The third quarter of 2023 has been pretty exciting as far as employment lawyers are concerned. Substantial regulations have been proposed and the pressure from federal agencies continues to rise. We will talk about some of the most influential changes over the last three months which will be of interest to all employers.
On August 2, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) adopted a new[1] standard for evaluating whether employee handbook policies violate the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). Under the new standard, the NLRB will determine the lawfulness of a policy by determining whether, from an employee’s perspective, the policy could reasonably be interpreted to have a limiting effect on protected activities. This new standard tosses aside the prior test which had allowed for recognition of an employer’s legitimate business interests in maintaining workplace rules, and going even further, completely disregards the employer’s intent in the promulgation of the rule.
Adding to the uncertainty, this new standard has already been applied to oral communications between supervisors and employees.[2] In September, the Division of Judges ruled that it was a violation of the NLRA for an employer to orally request an employee not discuss a special gas reimbursement that the supervisor provided at the employee’s request. While the Division’s finding was not surprising, the more concerning issue was...
A former Connecticut nurse has been charged with submitting thousands of false Medicaid claims for medication she did not give to patients, federal prosecutors said Friday. Florida resident Mariso...