While most employers in the U.S. must comply with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), employers in the railroad and airline industries need to understand the Railway Labor Act (RLA) and how its unique requirements impact...more
Cosmic shifts are happening in the jurisdictional landscape between the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and Railway Labor Act (RLA). These shifts have implications for private employers, as they have different rights and...more
In a recent advisory opinion following the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) referral, the National Mediation Board (NMB) ruled on whether the Railway Labor Act (RLA) applies to Swissport Cargo Services, LP, a...more
On March 23, 2023, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 41 providing relief for employers with airline cabin crew employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement (CBA) under the Federal Railway Labor Act and...more
Congress and POTUS Act to Avert National Freight Rail Shutdown. The national freight rail dispute that the Buzz had been tracking for months has come to the end of the line. Several holdout labor unions had refused to ratify...more
President Joe Biden has asked Congress to step in and enact legislation in the hopes of preventing a nationwide railway strike. The move comes after four of 12 national railroad labor unions rejected a proposed bargaining...more
Only hours before 100,000 railroad workers across the United States were set to go on strike in September, President Biden announced that his administration had facilitated a tentative agreement to prevent the walk-off. For...more
On September 15, 2022, railroad companies and unions representing railway workers reached a tentative agreement to potentially prevent a strike that would have caused significant harm to the American supply chain and economy....more
Railroads are covered by the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA), a piece of legislation that historically was the result of compromise between rail labor and rail management. One of the ostensible compromises in the RLA is that...more
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the federal agency that regulates rail safety, introduced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on July 28, 2022, that addresses the number of employees required to operate a train,...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The National Mediation Board’s new decertification rule survived the first round of legal challenge. In 2019, the NMB issued a final rule providing a direct decertification process under the Railway Labor...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Many employers have been dealing with threats of COVID-19 related work stoppages over the past several months. Whether such strike activity is subject to no-strike clauses under the National Labor...more
Most employers wrestling with COVID-19 related employment law issues aren’t paying much attention to the labor law issues arising out of the pandemic. Indeed, because most U.S. employers are non-union, many operate under the...more
On July 26, 2019, the National Mediation Board (NMB) announced that it is amending its regulations to provide a straightforward procedure for the decertification of labor unions. ...more
On June 13, 2019, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Miller v. Southwest Airlines, Co., Case 18-3476 (June 13, 2019), ruled that claims asserted under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), in the...more
Spring Regulatory Agenda Issued. On May 22, 2019, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) released the administration’s Spring 2019 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. Before diving into the...more
As previously reported, the National Mediation Board (“NMB”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) setting forth a proposal to amend its rules regarding the decertification of labor unions under the Railway Labor...more
The National Mediation Board's proposed rule would create a direct decertification procedure, eliminating its current, convoluted "straw man" decertification procedure. On January 31, 2019, the National Mediation Board...more
• To compel a union employee’s state law claim into arbitration based on RLA or LMRA preemption, an employer must prove that (1) the CBA is the “only source” of the right that the employee asserts and (2) litigating the state...more
• The number of class actions brought under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has increased substantially each year since its passage in 2008. • One of the main issues facing litigants is what constitutes...more
Dispute Deemed Minor under the Railway Labor Act, Sent To Arbitration - Flight Options, LLC and Flexjet LLC v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters 2017 WL 4583014 United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit The...more
In the early months of 2017, right-to-work legislation continues to garner significant attention as a number of states explore legislation. In early January, Kentucky passed legislation prohibiting employers from entering...more
On February 6, 2017, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens signed Senate Bill 19, making Missouri our nation’s 28th right-to-work state. In the last five years, five other states have passed right to work legislation (Indiana,...more
Ever since the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) blew open the joint employer concept last year in Browning-Ferris, it has been a rocky road for all involved to understand the implications of this new standard. The latest...more
Recently, 106 labor law professors and labor studies academics filed a rulemaking petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking an administrative rule that would require employers to provide “equal time” to...more