Labor rules shift fast
Federal labor doctrine is changing: Amazon is appealing an NLRB ban on mandatory anti‑union meetings while new legal reasoning lets companies challenge NLRB standards not used in the original violation finding, and the DOL is pushing a revived joint‑employer test to expand parent‑company wage liability. Those moves redraw the legal landscape for union drives and wage‑theft claims. (news.bloomberglaw.com) (politico.com)
Amazon’s challenge to the Board’s captive‑audience ruling appears on the Fifth Circuit docket as Amazon.com v. NLRB, No. 24‑50761, after Amazon filed its notice of appeal on Sept. 27, 2024. (dockets.justia.com) The Fifth Circuit issued a decision dismissing an earlier procedural aspect of the appeal for lack of jurisdiction on May 6, 2025, and Amazon later sought rehearing en banc with a petition filed Oct. 10, 2025. (caselaw.findlaw.com) The NLRB announced its captive‑audience holding on Nov. 13, 2024, expressly overruling the long‑standing Babcock & Wilcox precedent and finding mandatory anti‑union meetings unlawful where attendance is compelled “on pain of discipline or discharge.” (nlrb.gov) On March 6, 2026, the Sixth Circuit in Brown‑Forman Corp. v. NLRB, No. 24‑2107, became the first federal appeals court to refuse enforcement of a bargaining order that rested solely on the Board’s Cemex framework. (law.justia.com) The Sixth Circuit held the Board improperly promulgated the Cemex bargaining‑order standard through adjudication rather than rulemaking and remanded, ruling a Board order must stand on the specific grounds the Board actually relied upon. (casemine.com) The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division submitted a proposed “Joint Employer Status” rule to the White House/OIRA in mid‑March 2026—identified in OIRA filings as a proposal to govern joint‑employer liability under the FLSA, FMLA and related statutes. (ogletree.com) Separately, the NLRB formally withdrew its 2023 joint‑employer regulation and reinstated the narrower 2020 “substantial direct and immediate control” test in late February 2026, moving the Board back toward a more employer‑friendly joint‑employer standard. (hklaw.com)
