Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc., d/b/a BFI Newby Island Recyclery
National Labor Relations Board
362 NLRB No. 186 (2015)

- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
BFI Newby Island Recyclery (defendant) owned a recycling facility. BFI had 60 employees, who were represented by the union (plaintiff). In addition, Leadpoint Business Services provided BFI with workers to sort and clean the recycled materials and facility. BFI had certain required qualifications for any workers Leadpoint hired to work at a BFI facility. Although Leadpoint had the authority to discipline Leadpoint employees in the facility, BFI had discretion to reject any proffered Leadpoint workers with or without cause. Leadpoint had unilateral authority to set wages for its employees, but under its agreement with BFI could not pay an employee more than BFI paid one of its employees for similar work. BFI specified the timing and length of shifts for the Leadpoint employees, including whether and when to permit breaks, but Leadpoint assigned its employees to each shift. BFI and Leadpoint had separate human resources departments, and Leadpoint had an HR representative onsite at the BFI facility. In terms of the actual work performed, BFI largely controlled the workflows on each day, including how many recycling streams to run and how fast the streams should run. The union filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, seeking to collectively bargain on behalf of the sorters and cleaners in conjunction with the BFI employees. The union claimed that BFI and Leadpoint were joint employers of the sorters and cleaners, thus permitting union representation.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning ()
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