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With the holidays upon us come three welcomed gifts
courtesy of OSHA and NLRB:
OSHA Accepting Electronically Submitted Injury,
Illness Reports Through December 31
The United States Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has (again) extended the deadline for employers to submit their injury and illness reports electronically. Granting a two week reprieve, OSHA will continue accepting 2016 OSHA Form 300A data through the Injury Tracking Application (ITA) until midnight on December 31, 2017. OSHA will not take enforcement action against those employers who submit their reports after the December 15, 2017, deadline but before December 31, 2017, final entry date. Starting January 1, 2018, the ITA will no longer accept the 2016 data.
NLRB Begins to Lay Review Framework on Cases:
Precursor to Reverting Back to More Employer Friendly Practices Next?
In one of his first decisions as the new General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Peter Robb has published a General Counsel Memo (18-02 - which can be downloaded here).
While the memo doesn't have the effect of formally repealing previous decisions, the memo does lay out a framework for how it will evaluate and enforce cases submitted to the Board in the future. Specifically, the General Counsel is requiring cases brought before the Board be submitted to the Office of General Counsel for initial review and guidance if they are:
- cases that involve issues over the last eight years that overruled precedent and involved one or more dissents,
- cases involving issues that the Board has not decided, and
- any other cases that the Regional Offices "believe will be of importance to the General Counsel.
The first point is particularly telling given that it refers back to a window of time that covers controversial precedent that was blazed by a Board predominantly seen as progressive and pro-union in scope. With this scope in mind, the Memo goes on to define certain topics be explicitly reviewed including but not limited to:
- handbook policies and whether they trample upon Section 7 rights (including such policies prohibiting "disrespectful" conduct, rules prohibiting use of employer trademarks and logos, no camera/record rules, rules requiring employee to maintain confidentiality of workplace investigations);
- defining scope of what constitutes "concerted activity for mutual aid and protection" (i.e. when individual employee complaints can or should be considered protected);
- use of employer's email systems for union activities;
Will some of the precedent be ultimately reversed altogether? Narrowed but retained in some lesser form? Only time will tell, as the Board is presented with cases in the future.
NLRB Issues Request for Information
Regarding "Quickie Election" Regulations
The Board is also reviewing the controversial 2014 Election rules designed to shorten the timeline between receiving union organizing petitions and conducting elections. In particular, the Board is seeking comment to the following questions:
- Should the 2014 Election Rule be retained without change?
- Should the 2014 Election Rule be retained with modifications? If so, what should be modified?
- Should the 2014 Election Rule be rescinded? If so, should the Board revert to the Representation Election Regulations that were in effect prior to the 2014 Election Rule's adoption, or should the Board make changes to the prior Representation Election Regulations? If the Board should make changes to the prior Representation Election Regulations, what should be changed?
To review the background behind the request for information, you can do so by clicking here.
We will see what other gifts are forthcoming in 2018 and will keep you posted.
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