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Brianna Schmid

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Recent years have shown a continued increase in unionization and organization activities within the American workforce, as measured by union representation petition filings with the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB).

The NLRB confirmed this upward trend at the close of FY 2024, which ended on September 30, 2024. According to the NLRB’s data, union election petitions increased by 27 percent over FY 2023, totaling 3,286 petitions filed. The data also shows that the number of union election petitions more than doubled the 1,638 petitions filed in FY 2021.Continue Reading Unionization activity continues to surge in the U.S.

As employers continue to monitor the legal challenges against the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) final rule banning most non-compete agreements, they should not overlook similar efforts by other federal agencies and/or state legislatures to limit and/or prohibit the use and enforcement of non-compete agreements between employers and employees.

To that end, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) has primed itself to take its own swing at non-compete agreements. On October 7, 2024, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a 17-page memo focused on the use of overly broad non-compete agreements. It expands on her May 30, 2023 memo, in which she opined that non-compete agreements tended to chill an employee’s rights to engage in concerted activity protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, including advocating for improved working conditions through concerted efforts to obtain employment with other employers or carry out concerted threats of resignation.Continue Reading The non-compete agreement showdown: After the FTC’s final rule setback, the NLRB gears up to tackle non-compete agreements

Since Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana in 2016, employers navigated the murky waters of drug testing applicants and employees who hold medical marijuana cards amid a lack of clarity in the law regarding these issues.

On September 24, 2024, a new law went into effect in the City of Pittsburgh that provides a guiding beacon for employers in this area. The law protects individuals holding medical marijuana cards from employment discrimination in the workplace based on their cannabis use for medically approved purposes. In other words, the law makes medical marijuana cardholders a protected class under local law.Continue Reading Rolling out new rights: Pittsburgh’s bold move on medical marijuana in the workplace

On May 7, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a final regulatory rule that, if it takes effect as planned, which is currently scheduled for September 4, 2024, would invalidate and ban virtually all non-compete agreements in the U.S. Following publication of the rule in the Federal Register, legal challenges were promptly filed in Texas and Pennsylvania federal courts (another challenge was filed in Florida federal court in June). Motions seeking to preliminarily enjoin the final rule from taking effect followed, with the petitioners in each case arguing, among other things, that the FTC lacks authority to issue substantive rules concerning workplace non-compete agreements and, also, that the FTC did not sufficiently tailor the rule to the claimed purpose underlying it (by essentially issuing a blanket non-compete ban).Continue Reading What should U.S. businesses be doing right now concerning the FTC’s non-compete rule?

As previously reported, in late April, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unveiled a final regulatory rule that would invalidate and ban virtually all preexisting and future non-compete agreements in the U.S. Simply put, the rule, if it takes effect – which is currently scheduled to occur on September 4, 2024 though, as noted below, that might not come to pass – would represent the largest seismic shift ever in U.S. non-compete law.

Following publication of the rule in the Federal Register in early May, legal challenges were promptly filed in Texas and Pennsylvania Federal Courts (another challenge was filed in Florida federal court in June). Motions seeking to preliminarily enjoin the final rule from taking effect then ensued, with the petitioners in each case arguing, among other things, that the FTC lacks authority to issue substantive rules concerning non-compete agreements and, also, that the FTC did not sufficiently tailor the rule to the purpose/justification underlying it (by issuing an essentially blanket ban on non-competes).Continue Reading Compete chaos: Pennsylvania Court blesses FTC non-compete ban just weeks after Texas Court strikes it down

Employers in all industries should take notice that efforts to unionize appear to be spiking in 2024.  Indeed, data made available by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) shows that, in just the first few months of the current fiscal year, the number of union representation cases, or so-call “R-cases,” filed with the NLRB is on a meteoric rise – indicating that recent trends with respect to union organization efforts may be amplifying.

This was predicted in our prior article about the NLRB’s decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, which established a new framework for the union representation process. Under Cemex, when a union requests recognition based on a majority support of the employees to be in the bargaining unit, an employer must either: (1) recognize and bargain with the union; or (2) promptly file a RM petition to challenge the union’s claim of majority support by seeking an election, pursuant to Section 9(c)(1)(B) of the NLRA, unless the union has already filed a petition for a representation election pursuant to Section 9(c)(1)(A) of the Act. The time for the employer to act is limited, as it is generally held that the employer has only 14 days after the demand for recognition in which to file an RM petition.Continue Reading Employers take notice: Union representation petitions are spiking in 2024