Obama admin issues landmark labor ruling redefining the term "employer"

[ArcadiaGP]

Pretty big... and disastrous. Petty tyrant making moves in his lame-duck year.

NLRB rules against business in pivotal joint-employer decision | TheHill

 

[foszoe]

Why is this a bad thing? On the surface, if a company that I do business with hires out the work, but I have a beef with the end result, who should I be upset with, the person I contracted or the subcontractors?? I must be missing something.

 

[Reagan40]

Why is this a bad thing? On the surface, if a company that I do business with hires out the work, but I have a beef with the end result, who should I be upset with, the person I contracted or the subcontractors?? I must be missing something.

I believe you are looking at this the wrong way. It isn't about you as the consumer and whether you like the end result. This is about the employees of the subcontracted company and who is liable if they file a labor dispute. For a simple example, let's say you own a Retail store. Instead of cleaning the place yourself, you hire a cleaning company to clean the store after hours. Everything seems to be going well. Then, a couple of the employees of the cleaning company file a complaint stating that their collective bargaining agreement was breached because they were told by their supervisor to use chemical A instead of chemical B to clean the toilets. You never met these employees, nor did you ever meet or hire the supervisor. You also never were part of the collective bargaining process for the cleaning company. You never suggested which chemical to use, nor do you care. You just hired a cleaning company to clean your store... That is all. Now they can claim that both the cleaning company and YOUR company are legally liable for damages.
So, will this end outsourcing, which would make many labor unions happy? Or will this cause companies to thoroughly investigate companies they sub contract? Both cost money. Or maybe companies will just make sure they don't subcontract companies that are unionized. All could be potential outcomes.

 

[Cameramonkey]

The problem is the distinct avoidance of hiring employees by the parent company. Its one thing to hire a cleaning contractor to do ancillary work not related to daily operations. Its an entirely different animal to outsource core competency so you dont have to pay benefits.

Look at both Amazon and Eli Lilly. Both outsource VERY heavily with the express intention of avoiding employment responsibilities as it relates to benefits.

Its one thing to hire a contractor to fill a temp position or to fill a need for a random position that doesnt align with your core needs. Its another thing entirely to outsource all staff that fills that core operations goal.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Pretty big... and disastrous. Petty tyrant making moves in his lame-duck year.

NLRB rules against business in pivotal joint-employer decision | TheHill

I haven't read it yet, but the blurb I saw said it returned the definition to how it was defined in 1980. Not sure what the differences are yet and too tired to dig for it. Care to paraphrase it for me?

 

[Faine]

This could really hurt small business in America. Think about this. Supermarket ABC hires a company to deliver its food from the warehouse to the individual store for a week because their trucks are undergoing service. The driver for that company has an incident and crashes his truck on the route destroying their product and injuring himself. Now the employer of the driver and the Supermarket that payed that company for the delivery are responsible for the driver's well being, for the supermarket they lost all of their product and could have to pay millions in healthcare for a random guy working for another company. What's worse is that this could be cited as a case to allow corporations that sub-contract work to be responsible for tertiary damages, if that driver hit a bus load of kids for instance, but I digress. Corporations are very likely to look very in depth at their sub-contracted work as well as their need to allow other corporations to do things for them. Think on this. FedEx, UPS, and USPS are all paid by thousands of corporations to deliver millions of packages daily. If one of their drivers or sorters were injured on the job would they be able to site at fault every company who has a package the individual touched during their shift? Would all of those corporations be culpable for the injury suffered because if they didn't have packages shipped the worker wouldn't have been injured? Where is the line drawn on this?

 

[Expat]

The big unions seem very happy with the decision.

 

[Thor]

The big unions seem very happy with the decision.

And that alone is enough to on the surface assume it is bad.

 

[Bennettjh]

And that alone is enough to on the surface assume it is bad.

 

[Birds Away]

Is this throwing the unions a bone? They are none too happy about how Obamacare has worked out. I wonder if this is the administration trying to smooth things over.

 

[eldirector]

wow. this is HUGE. I need to read into this a bit more.

My company runs multiple call centers, and we are the #1 provider of outsources support in our industry. This could have an INCREDIBLE impact on our business.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

To recap, in light of this NLRB ruling: Centralized corporations are bad, but we need to make it harder for franchisees, and stop Uber too.

 

[2ADMNLOVER]

Its one thing to hire a contractor to fill a temp position or to fill a need for a random position that doesnt align with your core needs. Its another thing entirely to outsource all staff that fills that core operations goal.

If this is true then I see this as a good thing and could've used this about 10 years ago when a company I worked for fired all of us to sub work out to mexicans .

 

[Thor]

wow. this is HUGE. I need to read into this a bit more.

My company runs multiple call centers, and we are the #1 provider of outsources support in our industry. This could have an INCREDIBLE impact on our business.

The way I read the article, you and many many more may soon be out of business. If people thought the economy was bad before stand by; if this is allowed to become the law of land, chaos is at hand.

Best of luck to you...and the rest of us not employed by the gubment or union overlords. I'm sure we'll be asked to pull together as a community...as a commune...as a union of socialists...

It's not like that road isn't littered with the husks of failed states. But then again, dear leader is running out of time to fundamentally transform us as much as he wanted to.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

As a contract employee (and I like my current situation), this may have a negative impact on my situation. If my company decides it's no longer of benefit to them to have me, as a contractor, do this job instead of their own employees, I might be out of a job I kind of enjoy.

Having said that, they do have a point here:

The NLRB is seeking to end that situation by holding that both companies responsible as joint employers, because they “share or co-determine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment."

My real employer only cares that I get my time sheet in on time. My secondary employer only cares I get certain reports in on time and filled out to where they don't have to actually "manage" me. But my real employer, the people here a the plant I actually work with, actually are the ones that assign most tasks and set start times, etc.

 

[eldirector]

Well, that would suck.

I'm not worried about ME. I'm adaptable.

We employ 1500+ folks in 4 states, and another 150+ professional staff scattered across the US. Probably shouldn't share sales and payroll numbers, but they are not small. I'd hate for that to go away. Not just for my company (this is a notable portion of the overall business), but we are the largest employer in at least one of those 4 locations.

All depends on exact definitions. Thankfully, we have a legal team that deals with this crap.

 

[spec4]

Disgusting. This is one of the agencies that the next POTUS should eliminate on their first day in office.

Question: Could the next POTUS unilaterally cancel ALL of Obama's executive orders?

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Ok, I read the article. What's the fuss? A company is responsible for the people that work for it, even if they are hired through a staffing agency? Why is that going to cause the sky to fall?

 

[eldirector]

Because one of the primary reasons you "outsource" to a staffing agency is to NOT deal with benefits/payroll/HR/etc.... A secondary benefit is that you don't have to hire FT permanent staff, especially for project-based or seasonal work.

If *I* had to worry with all this HR business for MY contracts, I'd dump them and figure out how to do without.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Because one of the primary reasons you "outsource" to a staffing agency is to NOT deal with benefits/payroll/HR/etc.... A secondary benefit is that you don't have to hire FT permanent staff, especially for project-based or seasonal work.

If *I* had to worry with all this HR business for MY contracts, I'd dump them and figure out how to do without.

Ok. You can still hire temp workers, and staffing agencies can still do their thing. However you are still responsible for the people working for you. I'm still not seeing the issue. If your employee drops my package and breaks it vs your temp drops my package and breaks it...what's the difference to me? You should be liable to me for my package being dropped regardless of if you hired the dropper directly or via a temp agency.

What about that says you can't let staffing agencies continue to deal with benefits/payroll/etc?