National Labor Relations Act

As health care entities around the country face staffing shortages, hospitals have started to turn to apps to fill nursing shifts. New apps allow hospitals to engage nurses as independent contractors to fill open shifts, allowing nurses to bid on shifts and select hours that match their schedule. Apps allow nurses to work as independent contractors and engage directly with the hospital as opposed to employees of the hospital or a nursing staffing agency that then engages on their behalf to staff the hospital. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on these apps, crediting their rise to nurses retiring or leaving the field after burn out from the COVID-19 pandemic, from which hospitals are still struggling to recover. But, these apps have existed for several years, and employment issues such as correct calculation of wages and tracking work time are something Epstein Becker Green has previously spotted.

Continue Reading Hospitals May Risk Penalties with Use of “Gig” Nurses

On February 1, the New York State Department of Labor (“NYSDOL”) adopted regulations (“Regulations”) clarifying the pay transparency provisions of Section 194(4) of the New York Labor Law. The pay transparency section was added to Section 194 as part of a broader amendment to New York State’s equal pay law in January 2016. This pay

Our colleague Steven M. Swirsky, a Member of the Firm at Epstein Becker Green, has a post on the Management Memo blog that will be of interest to many of our readers in the health care  industry: “NLRB Argues ‘Misclassification’ as an Independent Contractor Is Unfair Labor Practice.”

Following is an excerpt:

In a further

My colleagues Steven M. Swirsky and Adam C. Abrahms published a Management Memo blog post that will be of interest to many of our readers: “NLRB Issues Critical Guidance on Employer Handbooks, Rules and Policies Including “Approved” Language.”

Following is an excerpt:

On March 18, 2015, NLRB General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr.

by: Steven M. Swirsky and D. Martin Stanberry

An NLRB Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) has found that two computer usage policies of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (“UPMC”) violated the National Labor Relations Act (“Act”) because they had an unreasonable tendency to chill employee activities, including union organizing and employee discussions about terms and conditions