By Nelson Cary and Lauren Sanders
The NLRB’s rulemaking on the joint employer issue has again been delayed. Earlier this month, the AFL-CIO filed a memorandum (pdf) alleging that business groups secretly had “extensive input” on the proposed rule. The AFL-CIO requested a 30-day extension of the time to submit comments on the proposed rule.
On Monday, the NLRB announced that it was pushing back the deadline for submitting comments. Commenters now have until mid-January 2019 to submit comments on the proposed rule. The NLRB published its proposed rule in September, and the comment period, which was initially set to expire on November 13, 2018, and had previously been extended to December 13, 2018, will now run until January 14, 2019. Commenters may respond to a comment made during the comment period until January 22, 2019.
Almost 30,000 comments have been made so far about the proposed rule on joint employers. The NLRB will consider these comments as it drafts a final rule on joint employers. As we discussed on this blog in September, the proposed rule, as it is current written, would narrowly define joint employers as “employers [who] share or codetermine the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment, such as hiring, firing, supervision, and direction.”