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Imagine that an employee asks to come to your office to address concerns about workplace harassment. Pursuant to the company’s open door and non-harassment policies, you promptly schedule a meeting. When the employee arrives, she sits down, sets her smartphone on the desk facing you, and turns on the video camera before beginning to speak. Can you instruct her to turn off the recording device? Can you stop the meeting if she refuses? Would the answer change if the recording was surreptitious?

The answer to questions like these have become more blurry since the decision last year by the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) in Whole Foods Market, Inc.[1] Conventional wisdom before Whole Foods supported the view that, as a general rule, employers were on safe ground prohibiting audio or video recording in the workplace. In Whole Foods, however, the Board held that an employer may not lawfully adopt a work rule prohibiting employees from workplace recording, if the employees are acting in concert for mutual aid and protection and the employer cannot demonstrate an overriding business interest.

According to the Board, it is unlawful for an employer to prohibit employees from recording images of protected picketing and documenting unsafe equipment or workplace conditions. Similarly, an employer may not prohibit an employee from recording discussions with others about terms and conditions of employment or documenting inconsistent application of employer rules. Perhaps most troubling, even if the conversation or event that the employee wishes to record is not legally protected, the Board has ruled that an employee may record evidence to preserve for later use in administrative or judicial forums in employment-related actions. Get the picture?

Presently, the Whole Foods decision is on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Until then, employers have a few options to address recording devices in the workplace:

  • End the meeting. Employers that do not want conversations with their employees recorded could simply decline to participate in any conversation in which an employee is knowingly recording. This option, however, has several risks, particularly in a harassment scenario where the employer’s liability hinges on whether it took prompt remedial measures that were reasonably calculated to stop the allegedly unlawful conduct.
  • Narrowly tailor the rule. An employer can ensure that its ban on workplace recording is not so overly broad that employees would reasonably construe it to prohibit protected concerted activity. For example, the recording prohibition could be limited to legitimate business interests, such as recording trade secrets, proprietary processes, confidential technology, medical privacy, and information about vendors, customers, and suppliers.
  • Carve out “two-party consent” states. Some states, such as California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington, require the consent of both parties to a conversation before recording. Those states potentially could be carved out with a revised narrow rule prohibiting workplace recording.
  • Say “cheese” (but not much more). Perhaps the least risky option might be to rescind all rules prohibiting recording in the workplace, assume that everything is being recorded at all times, and act accordingly. If a workplace recording situation arises, an employer could address it on a case-by-case basis and determine whether the conduct violated another existing policy (e.g., anti-harassment) and whether the recording was otherwise protected by law. Another approach that an employer should consider is, in meetings, giving employees an opportunity to say what they wish to say while recording but keeping its own remarks to a minimum. An employer should take the comments under advisement and then respond in writing.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Take 5 newsletter “Five New Challenges Facing Retail Employers.”

[1] See Clare O’Connor, Does Jimmy John’s Non-Compete Clause For Sandwich Makers Have Legal Legs? Forbes (Oct. 15, 2014), http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/10/15/does-jimmy-johns-non-compete-clause-for-sandwich-makers-have-legal-legs/; see also Steven Greenhouse, Noncompete Clauses Increasingly Pop Up in Array of Jobs, New York Times (June 8, 2014) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs.html?_r=0.

Our colleague Steven M. Swirsky, a Member of the Firm at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Management Memo blog that will be of interest to many of our readers in the retail industry: “NLRB Argues ‘Misclassification’ as an Independent Contractor Is Unfair Labor Practice.”

Following is an excerpt:

In a further incursion into the area of the gig and new age economy, the Regional Director for the National Labor Relations Board’s Los Angeles office has issued an unfair labor practice complaint alleging that it is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”) for an employer to misclassify an employee as an independent contractor. …

The issuance of the complaint in this case comes less than a month after the Board’s General Counsel issued General Counsel Memorandum 16-01, Mandatory Submissions to Advice, identifying the types of cases that reflected “matters that involve General Counsel initiatives and/or priority areas of the law and labor policy.”  Among the top priorities are “Cases involving the employment status of workers in the on-demand economy,” and “Cases involving the question of whether the misclassification of employees as independent contractors,” which as reflected in the IBT complaint the General Counsel contends violates Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.

Read the full post here.

One day before the U.S. Department of Labor’s Family & Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) same-sex spouse final rule took effect on March 27, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered a preliminary injunction in Texas v. U.S., staying the application of the Final Rule for the states of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska.  This ruling directly impacts employers within the retail industry who are located or have employees living in these four states.

Background

In United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) as unconstitutional, finding that Congress did not have the authority to limit a state’s definition of “marriage” to “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”  Significantly, the Windsor decision left intact Section 2 of DOMA (the “Full Faith and Credit Statute”), which provides that no state is required to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.  Further to the President’s directive to implement the Windsor decision in all relevant federal statutes, in June 2014, the DOL proposed rulemaking to update the regulatory definition of spouse under the FMLA. The Final Rule is the result of that endeavor.

As we previously reported, the Final Rule adopts the “place of celebration” rule, thus amending prior regulations which followed the “place of residence” rule to define “spouse.”  For purposes of the FMLA, the place of residence rule determines spousal status under the laws where the couple resides, notwithstanding a valid out-of-state marriage license.   The place of celebration rule, on the other hand, determines spousal status by the jurisdiction in which the couple was married, thus expanding the availability of FMLA leave to more employees seeking leave to care for a same-sex spouse.

The Court’s Decision

Plaintiff States Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska sued, arguing the DOL exceeded its authority by promulgating a Final Rule that requires them to violate Section 2 of the DOMA and their respective state laws prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions.  The Texas court ordered the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction to stay the Final Rule pending a full determination of the issue on the merits.

The court first found that the Plaintiff States are likely to succeed on at least one of their claims, which assert that the Final Rule improperly conflicts with (1) the FMLA, which defines “spouse” as “a husband or wife, as the case may be” and which the court found was meant “to give marriage its traditional, complementarian meaning”; (2) the Full Faith and Credit Statute; and/or (3) state laws regarding marriage, which may be preempted by the Final Rule only if Congress intended to preempt the states’ definitions of marriage.

The court then held that the Final Rule would cause Plaintiff States to suffer irreparable harm because, for example, the Final Rule requires Texas agencies to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages as valid in violation of the Texas Family Code.

Lastly, although finding the threatened injury to both parties to be serious, the court decided that the public interest weighs in favor of a preliminary injunction against the DOL.  The court found in favor of upholding “the stability and consistency of the law” so as to permit a detailed and in-depth examination of the merits.  Additionally, the court pointed out that the injunction does not prohibit employers from granting leave to those who request leave to care for a loved one, but reasoned that a preliminary injunction is required to prevent the DOL “from mandating enforcement of its Final Rule against the states” and to protect the states’ laws from federal encroachment.

What This Means for Employers

Although the stay of the Final Rule is pending a full determination of the issue on the merits, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges likely will expedite and shape the outcome of the Texas court’s final ruling.  In Obergefell, the Supreme Court will address whether a state is constitutionally compelled under the Fourteenth Amendment to recognize as valid a same-sex marriage lawfully licensed in another jurisdiction and to license same-sex marriages.  Oral arguments in Obergefell are scheduled for Tuesday, April 28, 2015, and a final ruling is expected in late June of this year.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court decides Obergefell, however, employers in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Nebraska are advised to develop a compliant strategy for implementing the FMLA—a task that may be easier said than done.  Complicating the matter is a subsequent DOL filing in Texas v. U.S. where the DOL contends that the court’s order was not intended to preclude enforcement of the Final Rule against persons other than the named Plaintiff States, and thus applies only to the state governments of the states of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nebraska.

While covered employers are free to provide an employee with non-FMLA unpaid or paid job-protected leave to care for their same-sex partner (or for other reasons), such leave will not exhaust the employee’s FMLA leave entitlement and the employee will remain entitled to FMLA leave for covered reasons.  We recommend that covered employers that are not located and do not have employees living in one of the Plaintiff States amend their FMLA-related documents and otherwise implement policies to comport with the Final Rule, as detailed in EBG’s Act Now Advisory, DOL Extends FMLA Leave to More Same-Sex Couples.  Covered employers who are located or have employees living in one of the Plaintiff States, however, should confer with legal counsel to evaluate the impact of Texas v. U.S. and react accordingly, which may depend on the geographical scope of operations.

On January 5, 2015, less than one month after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) voted to adopt a Final Rule to amend its rules and procedures for representation elections, a lawsuit has been filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asserting that the Board exceeded its authority under the National Labor Relations Act (Act) when it amended its rules for votes on union representation and that the new rule in unconstitutional and violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the US Constitution.

The suit was filed by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation and the Society for Human Resources Management.  It seeks an order vacating the Final Rule, declaring the Final Rule to be contrary to the Act and in excess of the Board’s statutory jurisdiction and authority and to violate the First and Fifth Amendments.

The claims raised in the suit are essentially the same as those which were raised by in an action filed in the same court in 2012, in response to the NLRB’s December 2011 adoption of a very similar set of changes to its representation election procedures.  That action also challenged the Board’s action based on what it found to be the Board’s lack of a quorum at the time it adopted those rule changes in 2011. Because the Court found that the Board lacked a quorum at that time, it found it unnecessary to address the substantive arguments about the changes in the election rules that are the essence of the new lawsuit.

While the Complaint does not indicate that the plaintiffs are seeking an order enjoining the Board from implementing the new election procedures under the Final Rule while the case is litigated, the plaintiffs are likely to request such an order as the Final Rule’s effective date of April 15th nears.  In the earlier challenge to the Board’s 2011 rulemaking, the Court granted an injunction in April 2012 enjoining the Board from putting the new rules and procedures into effect, while it considered the merits of the challenge.

While Republican members of Congress have with increasing frequency indicated their desire to reign in the Board in a variety of areas where they have seen it as exceeding its mandate or moving in directions that they do not agree with, it is almost certain that President Obama would veto such legislation and it is not likely that the sufficient support would be present to override a veto. Thus as the New York Times observed  earlier this week, those who oppose administrative actions such as this are turning increasingly to the courts in hopes of relief.

We will continue to monitor and report on developments in this closely watched case.

Our colleagues Adam Abrahms, Steven Swirsky, and Martin Stanberry at Epstein Becker Green have a Management Memo blog post that will be of interest to many of our readers: “NLRB Issues 13 Complaints Alleging McDonald’s and Franchisees Are Joint-Employers.”

Following is an excerpt:

While the General Counsel’s actions are alarming, particularly for businesses that rely upon a franchise model, the issuance of these complaints comes as little surprise because, as we reported in July of this year, the General Counsel had previously announced the decision to take this action and pursue claims of joint-employer liability. What is somewhat surprising about the announcement is its timing because the Board has not yet issued its decision in Browning-Ferris, 32-RC-109684, where the Board invited interested parties to opine in amici briefs on the benefits and drawbacks of the current standard relied upon by the Board to determine if two employers are a joint-employer and to propose a new standard and factors the Board should consider in such cases. Similar to its recent repudiation of Register Guard, the Board may use Browning-Ferris to moot the thirty years of joint-employer case law that followed TLI, Inc. 271 NLRB 798 (1984).

On the Wage & Hour Defense Blog, coauthor Steven Swirsky comments:

The National Labor Relations Board continues to focus on the changes in the nature of the employer-employee relationship, and the question of what entity or entities are responsible to a company’s employees for compliance with the range of federal, state, and local employment laws, including wage payment and overtime laws.

The Board’s General Counsel has now taken another big step in his effort to broaden the definition of “employer,” issuing a series of 13 complaints alleging that McDonald’s shares responsibility for franchisees’ employees. At the same time, the Board is poised to answer the question of whether the long standing test that the NLRB has relied on for more than 30 years to determine joint employer status should be replaced with a broader definition, and if so what it should be.

Read the full original post here.

Our colleague Steven Swirsky at Epstein Becker Green wrote an advisory on an NLRB ruling that affects all employers: “NLRB Holds That Employees Have the Right to Use Company Email Systems for Union Organizing – Union and Non-Union Employers Are All Affected.” Following is an excerpt:

In its Purple Communications, Inc., decision, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) has ruled that “employee use of email for statutorily protected communications on nonworking time must presumptively be permitted” by employers that provide employees with access to email at work.  While the majority in Purple Communications characterized the decision as “carefully limited,” in reality, it appears to be a major game changer.  This decision applies to all employers, not only those that have union-represented employees or that are in the midst of union organizing campaigns.

Under this decision, which applies to both unionized and non-union workplaces alike, if an employer allows employees to use its email system at work, use of the email system “for statutorily protected communications on nonworking time must presumptively be permitted . . . .” In other words, if an employee has access to email at work and is ever allowed to use it to send or receive nonwork emails, the employee is permitted to use his or her work email to communicate with coworkers about union-related issues.

Read the full advisory here.

On Epstein Becker Green’s Management Memo blog, our colleague Jill Barbarino reviews the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling in Murphy Oil that revisited and reaffirmed its position that employers violate the National Labor Relations Act by requiring employees covered by the Act (virtually all non-supervisory and non-managerial employees of most private sector employees, whether unionized or not) to waive, as a condition of their employment, participation in class or collective actions despite rejection by federal courts.

Click here to read the Management memo blog post in its entirety.

 

On Epstein Becker Green’s Management Memo blog, I review New Jersey U.S. District Court’s ruling in Naik v. 7-Eleven that four franchise owner-operators may pursue overtime and minimum wage claims against franchisor 7-Eleven under both the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law (“NJWHL”).

Following is an excerpt from the blog post:

On July 29, 2014 the NLRB’s General Counsel announced a decision to treat McDonald’s, USA, LLC as a joint employer, along with its franchisees, of workers  43 McDonald’s franchised restaurants with regard to unfair labor practices charges filed by unions on behalf of the  workers and authorized charges against of both the franchisees and McDonalds. (See our July 30 blog post  and Aug. 14 blog post)

To access the full blog post, please click here.

The issue of joint-employer status has become a prominent issue of concern for retailers, many of which are comprised of franchises or include independent boutiques and counters in their stores. As the NLRB moves towards a broader definition of joint employer status, the  NLRB’s General Counsel’s position in a series of cases involving McDonald’s and numerous franchisees across the country appears to foreshadow the NLRB’s new, more aggressive position on what factors establish the joint employer relationship.

On Epstein Becker Green’s Management Memo blog, Steven M. Swirsky discusses this issue and the following is an excerpt from the blog post:

NLRB General Counsel Richard Griffin announced on Tuesday July 29th that he has authorized issuance of Unfair Labor Practice Complaints based on 43 of 181 charges pending against McDonald’s, USA, LLC and various of its franchisees, in which the Board will allege that the company and its franchisees are joint-employers. If the General Counsel prevails on his theory that McDonalds is a joint employer with its franchisees, the result would be not only a finding of shared responsibility for unfair labor practices, but could also mean that the franchisor would share in the responsibilities of collective bargaining if unions are successful in organizing franchisors’ workers.

To access the full blog post, please click here.

On Epstein Becker Green’s Management Memo blog, Steven M. Swirsky reviews the National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB”) recent decision regarding Bergdorf Goodman’s New York Store’s women’s shoe sales employees.

Following is an excerpt from the blog post:

The NLRB finds that the women’s shoe sales employees at Bergdorf Goodman’s New York Store are not an appropriate unit for bargaining. The Board’s unanimous decision to reverse the Regional Director’s finding that the shoe sales team did constitute an appropriate unit and could have their own vote on union representation comes one week after its decision finding that a unit limited to the cosmetics and fragrance sales employees at a Macy’s in Saugus were an appropriate unit for bargaining. The Regional Directors who issued the Decisions and Directions of Election in Macy’s and Bergdorf Goodman each had relied on the Board’s Specialty Health Care decision, which is now often referred to as the “Micro Unit” decision.

To access the full blog post, please click here.