NLRB Appointments

President Obama has announced his intention to nominate two union attorneys to be Board members of the NLRB.  They are Craig Becker and Mark G. Pearce.

Becker has been Associate General Counsel for the Service Employees International Union for 17 years and holds the same position at the AFL-CIO.  He has practiced and taught labor law for 27 years.

Pearce practices labor law at a law firm in Buffalo, NY that represents unions and individual employees.  He previously taught labor law and began his career at the NLRB.

The NLRB has a total of five Board Members.  Traditionally, the President appoints three Members from his party to the staggered terms of the NLRB and designates one of them to be Chairman.  The two other Board Members are traditionally from the opposition party.  At the present time, there are two Board Members serving on the NLRB who were appointed during the prior administration- Chairman Liebman (D) and Member Schaumber (R).   If these two new appointments by President Obama are confirmed by the Senate,  there will be a Democratic majority for the first time in many years.

The President also nominates the General Counsel of the NLRB.

Update re : EFCA – Senator Arlen Specter (R – PA) previously announced that he would vote against a cloture motion on EFCA thereby making it unlikely that a filibuster could be ended.  Today, Senator Specter announced that he will run for reelection to the Senate next year as a Democrat.  This will likely change the playing field for the pasage of EFCA.  Stay tuned for new developments.

Update re NLRB Nominees:   On December 28, 2009, the Washington Post reported that the nomination of Craig Becker to the NLRB has been returned by Congress to the White House for “reconsideration.”   Speculation is that Becker may request that his nomination be withdrawn in view of the strong likelihood that Senator John McCain will not allow this nomination to be passed out of the Senate committee for a vote by the full Senate.  On January 7, 2010, the NY Times reported that President Obama will resubmit Becker as a nominee to the NLRB.

COBRA Subsidy Notices Due

On January 17, 2009, the Economic Stimulus Plan was enacted, a part of which provided for subsidies of COBRA premiums pursuant to certain criteria.  See the postings in this blog of March 5 and 20, 2009 for a brief description of that criteria. 

The U.S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service have continued to update information concerning this subsidy and employers should check these websites with respect to complying with the mandates of this program.

April 18, 2009 was the deadline for mailing Notices to all employees who have been involuntarily separated since September 1, 2008, whether they elected to take COBRA coverage or not.  The DOL website contains model notices to be sent to former employees, as well as to employees who are involuntarily separated during the remainder of 2009.

New I-9 Form

As of April 3, 2009, all U.S. employers are required to use a new revised Form I-9. This new form contains several changes in accordance with final rules issued by the Department of Homeland Security.  You can download the new I-9 form by clicking on the website of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency (f/k/a the INS).  The form is also available in Spanish. 

The USCIS has also prepared a 45 page handbook for employers that should be helpful for any questions that you may have concerning the new I-9 form,