SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

The Northern District of Illinois recently certified* a class action in a case alleging that employers should pay overtime wages for time employees spend checking their e-mail after hours. The police officer who sued the city of Chicago claims the Police Department had an “unwritten policy” requiring officers to check their BlackBerry after normal working hours without compensation. Checking their BlackBerry, the officer claimed, constituted substantive police work and the department would have been significantly less successful in accomplishing its goals without regular required BlackBerry use.

On January 25, 2013, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Noel Canning v. NLRB) invalidated President Obama’s appointment of Sharon Block, Terence Flynn and Richard Griffin to the National Labor Relations Board based on the court’s conclusion that the three “recess” appointments failed to meet the requirements of the US Constitution. This decision calls into question over a year’s worth of Board decisions as well as the Board’s authority to act at present and for the indefinite future; however, NLRB Chairman Pearce indicated that the agency would take a “business as usual” approach until all appeals were exhausted. On March 12, the Administration announced that it would seek US Supreme Court review of the Noel Canning decision.