Jeremy Sherman Quoted in Employment Law360
“Impact of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Class Action Waiver Memo Unclear”

Jeremy Sherman was quoted in the July 14, 2010 Employment Law360 article, “Impact of NLRB Class Action Waiver Memo Unclear.” The article discussed a memorandum on the use of class action waivers in mandatory arbitration agreements, which was issued by general counsel, Ronald Meisburg, before his departure from the NLRB.

According to the article, Meisburg issued the memo to advise regional directors on how to assess unfair labor practice charges involving individual, nonunion employee arbitration agreements that prohibit class actions. The article noted that the NLRB has established that the filing of a class action is protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), but federal courts have upheld arbitration agreements that contain individual waivers of the right to pursue class action relief. Jeremy questioned the notion that Section 7 was intended to allow employees to act in a concerted fashion to pursue union activity and could be extended to apply to employment rights not covered under the NLRA, such as those under Title VII. He commented, “to me, this is an overreach, because the issue of whether or not, and the timing for when a class action can be filed is fundamentally a procedural issue, and there is nothing in this general counsel memorandum which focuses on the issue of substantive non-NLRA rights.”