{"id":11006,"date":"2026-06-20T20:27:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T20:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/nlrb-proposes-change-to-joint-employer-standard\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T20:27:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T20:27:58","slug":"nlrb-proposes-change-to-joint-employer-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/nlrb-proposes-change-to-joint-employer-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"NLRB Proposes Change to Joint-Employer Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"contentSummaryCollapse\" style=\"--intro-p-height: 10.3125rem;\">\n<div class=\"inner-collapse\">\n                        Tomorrow, the National Labor Relations Board will be publishing a proposed rule that would roll back the controversial \u201cjoint employer\u201d definition contained in the NLRB\u2019s 2015<em> Browning-Ferris<\/em> decision. This is the latest move in the long-running saga to bring the Board\u2019s position on joint employment to rest.<\/p>\n<p><u>Background<\/u><\/p>\n<p>In its 2015 decision in <em>Browning-Ferris<\/em>, the NLRB reversed decades\u2019-long precedent and held that direct control was not needed for a contractor to be considered a joint employer.\u00a0 In December 2017, with a Republican majority in place, the NLRB reversed <em>Browning-Ferris<\/em> in <em>Hy-Brand<\/em>.\u00a0 But in February 2018, the Board was forced to vacate <em>Hy-Brand <\/em>after the inspector general found that one NLRB member (William Emanuel) should not have participated in the <em>Hy-Brand<\/em> decision because his former law firm had been a litigant in <em>Browning-Ferris<\/em>.\u00a0 As a result, the <em>Browning-Ferris <\/em>standard remained intact.\u00a0 In May 2018, the NLRB announced it was considering rulemaking as the joint-employer definition it would use.\u00a0 (For more information, select the \u201cNLRB\u201d tag from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of this blog.)<\/p>\n<p><u>The Proposed Rule<\/u><\/p>\n<p>On its website today, the NRLB said that under the proposed rule, \u201cAn employer may be found to be a joint-employer of another employer\u2019 employees only if it possesses and exercises substantial, direct and immediate control over the essential terms and conditions of employment and has done so in a manner that is not limited and routine.\u00a0 Indirect influence and contractual reservations of authority would no longer be sufficient to establish a joint-employer relationship.\u201d\u00a0 The proposed rule would thus unwind the <em>Browning-Ferris<\/em> decision.\u00a0 The NLRB further stated that the proposal \u201creflects the Board majority\u2019s initial view, subject to potential revision in response to public comments, that the National Labor Relations Act\u2019s intent is best supported by a joint-employer doctrine that does not draw third parties, who have not played an active role in deciding wages, benefits, or other essential terms and conditions of employment, into a collective-bargaining relationship for another employer\u2019s employees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><u>Comments Period.<\/u><br \/>Comments on the proposed rule are due 60 days from the scheduled date of publication, September 14, 2018.\n                    <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomorrow, the National Labor Relations Board will be publishing a proposed rule that would roll back the controversial \u201cjoint employer\u201d definition contained in the NLRB\u2019s 2015 Browning-Ferris decision. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[200,7529,369,1542,3655],"class_list":["post-11006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-change","tag-jointemployer","tag-nlrb","tag-proposes","tag-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}