The NLRB Hits Just Keep Coming. This Time, Possible Front-Pay

There seems to be no slowing to the NLRB's unusually high recent activity. As we have written in recent weeks, the Board has recently changed direction with respect to employers handing over witness statements, has asserted that employers are now responsible for extra taxes on back-pay awards, and must now continue dues check following expiration of a collective bargaining agreement. On January 9, 2013, breaking from a long-standing policy, NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe E. Solomon recently issued a Memorandum (Memorandum GC 13-2) announcing that front-pay may start to be included in agency settlements. Previously, payments exceeding 100 percent of back-pay were to be set out by private parties in separate agreements. As a result of the change in policy, the NLRB's Compliance Casehandling Manual, which currently requires that settlement terms that include items such as front-pay be set forth in non-Board "side letters," will be amended to include front-pay in