• Today the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) “refined its standard for determining joint-employer status.” It ruled, 3-2, that Browning-Ferris Industries was a joint employer with its contractor Leadpoint. The NLRB said,

With more than 2.87 million of the nation’s workers employed through temporary agencies in August 2014, the Board held that its previous joint employer standard has failed to keep pace with changes in the workplace and economic circumstances.

As the New York Times notes, this decision makes

it substantially easier for unions to bargain for higher wages and benefits, opening the door for organized workers at fast-food chains and other franchises to negotiate with corporations like McDonald’s and Yum Brands, rather than with individual restaurants, where they might have a harder time achieving their goals.

• Also today, the state Supreme Court upheld the denial of a workers’ compensation claim involving a firefighter and occupational disease. Kris Tefft at the Washington Self-Insurers Association explains why this is important:

In the final analysis, municipal and large private employers of firefighters dodged a potentially quite expensive decision today, as the Supreme Court hewed closely to the plain language and original intent of the occupational disease presumption, refusing to broaden it to an unlimited range of infections or breathing issues.

• Lastly, here’s an interesting post on the minimum wage and the price of housing from economist Adam Ozimek. He notes,

If the minimum wage causes low-skilled people to leave a city or state, the full effects could take much longer than the few years considered in most minimum wage studies.