This is not sexy or interesting, but if we don’t remind you of this stuff, who will?Keep reading if you are a private employer with at least 100 employees, a federal contractor, or a first-tier subcontractor on a federal contract worth at least $50,000 and have 50 or more employees, or are a financial institution. Otherwise, skip the boring stuff that follows and read below the break.

We want to be sure that effected employers remember that March 31, 2018 is the deadline to submit the 2017 EEO-1 report  to the EEOC, which has announced that this will be the new deadline in the future as well, so you can now remove the previous filing date of September 30 from your calendar. Employers can use a snapshot of their workforce during any single pay period in October through December to gather the reportable demographic data. The EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs use the EEO-1 data to evaluate employer’s compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws and to determine which employers should be subject to audit.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************

Now, something just for fun.

Do you remember your college Resident Advisor (RA), who used to tell you to turn down your stereo, stop singing in the halls when returning from last call and no hooking up in the showers? Yeah, our RAs didn’t tell us those things either. But the RAs at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, who apparently believe they are overworked and under paid, want to be recognized as unionized employees of the college. Not surprisingly, so far the NLRB is on their side.

In a recent ruling, the NLRB’s Regional Director found that the RAs were employees who are paid an amount equal to the cost of their room and board (which sounds like break-even), and must apply for the job and receive training. The college argued that the primary focus of the job is to support and mentor other students, which is not inconsistent with an RAs role as a student. The NLRB concluded that because RAs are paid for a service and how they perform that service is controlled by the school, they are employees subject to the National Labor Relations Act.

In a very risky move, the college threw up a Hail Mary in an effort to win a potential election by arguing that if the NLRB were to find that the RAs were employees, then all students with similar positions should be included in the potential bargaining unit for voting purposes. In that effort, the college named student safety patrol, student health advocates, peer mentors for international students, peer counselors who educate students on issues of sexual consent, student career advisors and tutors; arguing that those groups should be able to vote together with the RAs should the NLRB order a union election. In rejecting that much larger bargaining unit, the NLRB said that the more diverse student groups did not have enough similarity of interests to constitute a single unit. Although the college was clearly betting on the odds that a much larger unit would give it a better chance to win an election, had that risky strategy backfired, Dean Wormer, Bluto and Flounder would probably have been the only non-union members on campus. Reed College, to avoid dealing with RAs and hundreds of other “employee-students,” must now hold its breath to see if the full NLRB will support the Regional Director’s decision.

In the meantime, Toga! Toga! Toga!