Labor Board Restores a More Rigorous Joint Employment Test

The National Labor Relations Board has overruled its 2015 Browning-Ferris Industries decision and turned the clock back on the board’s test for determining whether multiple employers are joint employers under the National Labor Relations Act.

Before Browning-Ferris, the NLRB held for some 30 years that multiple entities could be considered joint employers of a group of employees only if each had exercised direct and immediate control over a group of employees. Critics of the rule said the 2015 ruling made it easier for businesses that worked together through staffing and other contractual relationships to be found liable for each other’s ...