I could think of a few songs called “Hold On” – Yes and Wilson Philips were the two that first came to mind. But I had no idea how popular a song name that was.
According to Wikipedia, there are at least 17 albums called Hold On and 311 songs with that name. Who knew?
“Hold on” is the theme of today’s post because that’s what a federal court in Texas decided to do with the NLRB joint employer rule. Judge H. Campbell Barker pushed back the effective date of the rule from Feb. 26 to March 11.
But that doesn’t mean the rule will go into effect March 11.
In the meantime, the judge is considering the arguments presented by both sides and may invalidate the rule entirely. I believe the delay is to buy time to draft a thorough opinion. Whatever the ruling is, it will be appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
For now, employers should review their agreements with vendors supplying labor (e.g., staffing agencies, outsourced functions) and use this opportunity to button them up. Here are ten things that should be in your staffing agency agreements but probably aren’t.
Employers should also review the degree of control they exercise over outsourced labor. On one hand, staffing workers who are intermingled with regular employees and supervised by employer managers are likely in a joint employment relationship already. But with outsourced workers, steps should be taken to avoid joint employment. The new NLRB rule would make it harder to avoid joint employment, and employers should take steps to minimize control over outsourced workers.
© 2024 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.
