from the May 2012 Labor and Employment Law News
This case discusses the law that may apply in workforces that include employees and contractor employees. The employees worked for a subcontractor on the premises of the New York New York Casino. The subcontractor’s employees filed a case with the NLRB after they were forbidden from telling customers coming into the casino about their efforts to have their employer recognize their union. The decision’s first paragraph sums up the court’s reasoning and conclusions:
Under precedents of the Supreme Court and the National Labor Relations Board, a property owner generally may not bar its employees from distributing union-related handbills on the property. But a property owner generally may bar non-employees from doing so. In this case, the primary question raised by New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is whether a property owner may bar employees of an onsite contractor from distributing union-related handbills on the property. The problem for New York-New York is that this Court previously considered that question and held that the Board has discretion over how to answer it. On remand from this Court, the Board concluded that a property owner generally may not bar employees of an onsite contractor from distributing union-related handbills on the property. New York-New York asks us to overturn the Board’s ruling. That would require us to overrule our prior panel decision, which determined that the Board has discretion on this issue. We are of course bound by our prior panel decision and must reject New York-New York’s attempt to have us reopen it. New York-New York also raises a few separate points based on the particular facts of this case, but none suffices to overturn the Board’s ruling. We therefore deny New York-New York’s petition for review and grant the Board’s cross-application for enforcement of its order.
New York-New York v. National Labor Relations Board, Case No.11-1098 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 17, 2012)
Past issues of the LEL Newsletter may be found here.
