By Jon Taets
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—In September, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a new version of its joint employer rule and could have far reaching impacts in the convenience retailing industry. The proposal, if enacted, will greatly increase the risk that businesses could be deemed a joint employer of workers who are directly employed by suppliers or other service providers. This could potentially open your business up to liability for labor law violations or pull your business in to collective bargaining situations.
The board is accepting public comments on the proposal until December 7, 2022, and NACS is urging as many businesses as possible to file comments explaining the proposals deficiencies to the NLRB. The NACS government relations team has made this process simple for those in our industry. Simply download the provided letter template, make the necessary edits and email the final version back to the government relations team who will take care of filing the comments for you. The whole process should take less than 15 minutes.
Filing comments on this proposal, and any regulatory rule that would detrimentally impact the industry, is incredibly important. The more comments that are filed tells the board its proposal is misguided, and the more likely it is that changes will be made. The comments may also lay the groundwork for eventual legal challenges to the rule should anyone seek to take such action. This is an easy way for convenience retailers to directly petition the federal government.
If you have any questions about the proposal itself, the template letter provided, or filing comments please do not hesitate to reach out to me (jtaets@convenience.org) or Margaret Hardin (mhardin@convenience.org) on the NACS Government Relations team.
Visit the NACS Joint Employer topics page for more background on the issue.
Jon Taets is NACS director of government relations.