Rojgar Job News

Between August 29 and September 10, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) issued four decisions that resolve important issues that have been the subject of long-running disputes.  It also issued an invitation to submit briefs in a case that provides an opportunity for the current Board majority members to revise the standard for when employee conduct loses protection under the National Labor Relations Act. Misclassification of Employees As Contractors Alone Does Not Violate Federal Law On August 29, 2019, the NLRB decided that employers who incorrectly classify employees as independent contractors – who are not subject to the protections and benefits of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”), which applies only to non-managerial, non-supervisory employees – do not violate the NLRA because misclassification “does not, in and of itself, contain any ‘threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit....

So said German lithographer Herm Albright in a rare moment’s cynicism, but of course if you really want to get on your colleagues’ nerves, a hostile or negative attitude is far more to be commended. So here is a question arising from a matter on which we were recently instructed. Client’s employee has a persistently difficult attitude – rude, micro-(and indeed macro-)aggressive, sullen, lots of tutting and sighing, a distinct snippiness to his tone and all this still in his probationary period. Off to a flier, clearly.  When the employer’s concerns were raised with him, back came quite a lot more lip plus the assertion that it was all the product of some still unspecified mental health condition. That may or may not be so in this particular case, but it begs a difficult question – to what extent is an employer obliged to tolerate sub-standard “attitude” in the workplace if it has or may have its origin in a disability? The issue is pa...

In the first two posts in this series, I looked at the law around workplace attitudes which might stem from some form of disability. But what if your employee is fit and well in all respects bar being exceptionally painful to work with? He may be relentlessly negative, make heavy weather out of every instruction, or just operate on a very short fuse, often perfectly civil but prone to detonation when colleagues overstep some clearly very important, but also absolutely invisible, line in their dealings with him. He is, in every sense, grit in the gearbox of your business. But without obvious performance or conduct concerns, what can you do? Probably the first point is to ascertain whether the employee himself recognises the problems he is causing to his colleagues. This won’t be an easy conversation but it forces him to confront the problem head-on. He may demand to know who has complained and require detailed examples of where others have been offended. By the very nature of a poo...