BFI operated a refuse transfer site and contracted with independent trucking brokers to provide tractors and drivers to haul BFI trailers to a landfill. BFI set shift start times, required its approval of drivers, directed drivers at the transfer and landfill sites, provided uniforms bearing BFI's name, used BFI forms for load records, and enforced work rules on its premises. The ALJ found that BFI's plant manager, Moersch, on several occasions effectively fired, barred, or rehired drivers and asserted authority over them. The Board concluded from these facts that BFI and the brokers jointly employed the drivers.
Issue
What standard governs whether a company is a joint employer under the NLRA, and under that standard whether BFI was a joint employer of the drivers supplied by independent trucking brokers.
Rule
In a joint-employer case, the proper inquiry is not the four-factor single-employer test for integrated enterprises. Instead, entities are joint employers under the NLRA when, although separate and independent, they share or co-determine matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment, meaning that both exert significant control over the same employees.
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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.
Riverfront Recycling, a separate corporation in Newark, contracts with Keystone Haulage, an unrelated trucking company, to supply drivers. Riverfront approves each driver, sets the start times for the two daily shifts, directs where drivers load and unload on Riverfront property, and can tell Keystone that a driver may not return to the site. The companies have no common ownership, no shared officers, and bargain at arm’s length.
If a dispute arises over whether Riverfront is also an employer of the drivers under the NLRA, which legal standard should govern?
Explanation. The majority distinguished joint-employer doctrine from single-employer doctrine. Where two separate entities remain independent but both control the same workers, the proper inquiry is whether they share or co-determine matters governing essential terms and conditions of employment, meaning both exert significant control over the same employees. The four-factor integration test applies to single-employer questions, not this one. (Derived from Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc. v. NLRB (1982).)