On New Year’s Eve, Sister Sledge will be playing at the Seminole Casino in Coconut Creek, Florida. (You can buy tickets here.  You’re welcome.) The sisters will, of course, play the 1979 single, “We Are Family,” which is a disco song that it’s ok to admit you like. I don’t know what else they’ll play though.  It could be a long night.

“We Are Family” is also what happens when a company retains staffing agency temps for so long that they become, in that company’s words, “permanent temps.” It’s joint employment deluxe.

A recent decision by the NLRB examines what happens when a joint employer fails to apply a collective bargaining agreement to those “permanent temps.”

Orchid Paper Products Company in Pryor, Oklahoma, produces — wait for it — paper products. Their workforce is unionized and they make frequent use of staffing agency temps. The temps frequently remain on-site for long periods of time, at which point they acquire the status of “permanent temps.”

These workers are supervised and controlled by Orchid Paper, even though they are paid by their staffing firm. The Board found that under any test — Browning-Ferris or otherwise — they are joint employees.

One consequence of being a joint employee in a union environment is that the joint employer, Orchid Paper, has to follow the requirements of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) as to those workers, even though they’re staffing agency workers. When Orchid Paper failed to follow the CBA as to those workers, it engaged in an unfair labor practice. So far, no big surprise.

The issue to be decided here, though, was the scope of the remedy that could be imposed.

As a result of an unfair labor practice, could the Board order a a remedy that held Orchid Paper to the entire CBA for its temps?

The Board said no, ruling that only certain parts of the CBA can be applied. In other words, “We Are Family, but Maybe Only Like Third Cousins.”

The Board ruled that an order intended to remedy an unfair labor practice had to be limited. The Board could only order the joint employer to apply the CBA provisions to the joint employees that related to the working conditions that Orchid Paper controlled.

My research in preparing this blog revealed that Sister Sledge, in fact, had two other Top 20 hits in 1979 — “He’s the Greatest Dancer” and “Lost in Music.” Those of you who remember those two songs will thoroughly enjoy the New Year’s Eve Show. Bring your platform soles.

© 2018 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.