Microsoft fights ruling that strengthens definition of employee

Microsoft and a high-powered list of business trade groups are fighting to block a government ruling that strengthens employment standards for temporary contractors. 

In a brief filed this week, the technology giant warned that more harm than good would come from a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that could require companies like it to treat contractors as actual employees. 

{mosads}Microsoft previously received praise from the White House for only hiring contracting firms that give their employees at least 15 days of paid leave. But the company said that those requirements could actually put Microsoft on the hook as a joint employer under the new NLRB ruling. 

Microsoft is against that because the ruling has already opened the company up to collective bargaining pressure from its contractors, and could lead to striking. 

The company said it is counterintuitive that President Obama could applaud Microsoft’s policy as “great work” for families, while at the same time the NLRB rule discourages others from taking up those policies of “corporate social responsibility.”

“Unfortunately, the Board’s unprecedented new joint employer standard, and subsequent events stemming from it, have deterred others from joining Microsoft in this important effort,” Microsoft’s lawyers argued. 

The case challenging the NLRB rule is currently at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A number of groups, along with Microsoft, filed friend of the court briefs in the case this week. 

They include the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation and a number of others. 

The case stems from a 3-2 NLRB ruling back in 2015, in which the board voted to strengthen its criteria for determining whether a company was on the hook as a joint employer of its contractors.

Under the ruling, companies can now be classified as a joint employer of a contractor if they “exercise control” over the terms and conditions of employment or have the authority to do so. Microsoft worries that its requirement that contracting firms hand out a certain amount of paid leave will dump the company into that expended definition of a joint employer. 

The board said it made the change because its previous standards have not kept pace with the modern workforce, noting that more than 2.87 million people were contractors as of 2014. 

The original ruling went against the company Browning-Ferris Industries, which is appealing.