The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) introduced a major revolution in labor law in the United States. Its reverberations are still acutely felt today, especially after the recent, ill-thought-out decision in the matter of Browning Ferris. There, the three Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board overturned well-established law over the fierce dissent of its two Republican members. If allowed to stand, this decision could reshape the face of American labor law for the worse by the simple expedient of giving a broad definition to the statutory term “employer.”

Right now, that term covers firms that hire their own workers, and the NLRB subjects those firms to the collective bargaining obligations under the NLRA. Under its new definition of employer, the NLRB majority expands that term to cover any firm that outsources the hiring and management of employees to a second firm, over which it retains some oversight function. In its decision, the NLRB refers to such firms and those to whom they outsource the hiring as “joint employers.”

Just that happened when a Browning Ferris subsidiary contracted out some of its recycling work to an independent business, Leadpoint. Under traditional labor law, Browning Ferris would not be considered the “employer” of Leadpoint’s employees—but the Board’s decision overturns that traditional definition. No longer, its majority says, must the employer’s control be exercised “directly and immediately.” Now “control exercised indirectly—such as through an intermediary—may establish joint-employer status.”

Read the full article at the Hoover Institution: How Democrats Stifle Labor Markets