Remember when you used to go to the video store to rent VHS tapes and there was that little sticker on the tape cheerfully reminding you to “Be kind! Rewind!”  I know, half of you have no idea what I am talking about, but there used to be these things for watching movies before Netflix — no, not DVDs, before that — no, no, not cave drawings, after that.

Anyway, take my word for it. The point was, when you were done with your movie, you were supposed to rewind the tape so the next viewer could start over, back at the beginning of the film. It was the courteous thing to do.

With last week’s confirmation of Peter Robb as the new General Counsel of the NLRB, the pieces are now in place for a rewind of the 2015 Browning-Ferris joint employment decision, which made it much easier under federal labor law to find joint employment. The 2015 decision changed the standard so that indirect and tangential control was sufficient to establish a joint employment relationship, rather than the previous standard requiring a more direct exercise of control.

The changed standard was a product of two factors: (1) a majority-Democratic, pro-union NLRB, and (2) a Democratic, pro-union NLRB General Counsel. A few weeks ago, the NLRB was reconstituted to bring back a Republican majority. Last week, a new General Counsel was confirmed. To overstate how this works, the General Counsel decides which cases to bring to the Board. The Board then decides those cases.

With these two recent developments, it’s almost time to Be Kind (to Businesses) and Rewind, back to the pre-2015 joint employment standard.

It will take some time, but it now seems almost inevitable that at some point during the next couple of years, the right case will be brought to the Board (courtesy of Mr. Robb), and the new Republican-majority Board will vacate the 2015 standard and return to the requirement that direct control must be shown before a business can be deemed a joint employer under federal labor law.

It’s too early right now for businesses to disregard Browning-Ferris. For now, it’s still the law, and Administrative Law Judges are likely to follow it (although that too may change, with the Browning-Ferris decision currently on appeal).

Anyway, stay tuned for further developments. And meanwhile, please fix the blinking green “12:00” on the face of your VCR.

© 2017 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.