NLRB candidates being vetted. Bloomberg BNA reported last night that President Trump has settled on two candidates to fill the two vacant seats on the National Labor Relations Board. One is William Emanuel, a shareholder in the Los Angeles Office of the management-side law firm Littler Mendelsohn. Here is a link to his firm bio. The other is Marvin Kaplan, counsel to a Commissioner ...

According to Politico's "Morning Shift," President Trump on Friday night promoted Philip Miscimarra from Acting Chairman to plain old Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. Congratulations, Chairman!

As of this morning, the NLRB website is still listing him as Acting Chairman.

There are still two vacant seats on the five-member Board, which the ...

DEAR READERS: Before you accuse me of legal malpractice, take a look at tomorrow's date.  

Habit 1: Discriminate, retaliate, harass -- have a ball! There's a new sheriff in town, with a more employer-friendly, compliance-assistance-oriented U.S. Department of Labor (we think) and the nullification of burdensome regulations like the gone-and-not-lamented Fair Pay and Safe ...

Franchisors received some encouraging news this week from President Trump's Acting Solicitor General, Nicholas Geale. Mr. Geale says that he prefers not to bring enforcement actions based on a theory that franchisors and franchisees are "joint employers." He also said that he hopes the U.S. Department of Labor will focus on helping employers to comply with the law and less on ...

Work card renewal for foreign workers gets easier. First, I neglected last week to include this Immigration Dispatch by Elizabeth Joiner on changes to the process for renewing Employment Authorization Cards (aka "work cards") that should make things easier for foreign workers. Please do read, and, Elizabeth, I apologize for the delay!

The January-February edition of the ...

Walter Olson of the great Overlawyered.com sent a challenge over Twitter earlier this week:

For those of you who don't know Mr. Olson, he's a libertarian.  :-)

I have to admit, I needed time to process this! I complain about these laws all the time, but would I really want to get rid of all protections for employees who want to organize, be paid a fair wage, avoid being thrown out on the street ...

Yikes. I hope I haven't missed anybody. Wild week!

We hope that the immigrant strikes are about over by now, but they may continue into today, and a women's strike is reportedly set for March 8. Do employers have any recourse when their employees go out on strike? It depends. If the strike is "protected concerted activity" (and it may be), then employers will need to tread carefully and ...

The State of Missouri has now become our 28th right-to-work state, following closely after Kentucky, which took the leap about a month ago.

The Missouri bill was signed into law yesterday by Republican Gov. Eric Greitens, and is scheduled to take effect in August. However, the Missouri AFL-CIO has requested a voter referendum on the measure. If the union gets enough signatures, the ...

Law360 has just reported that President Trump has appointed Philip A. Miscimarra, the only current Republican member of the National Labor Relations Board, as Acting Chairman of the NLRB, replacing Mark Gaston Pearce. Here is Mr. Miscimarra's bio from the NLRB website. This is welcome news for employers.

NOTE FROM ROBIN: Effective today, I'm officially changing the name of these mini-dispatches about President Trump's first actions related to labor and employment law issues, to "Daily Trumpdate." My first dispatch is here.

President Trump met yesterday with representatives of a number of unions, and according to everyone involved, the meeting went well. It didn't hurt matters that ...