NLRB Defers to Arbitrator’s Ruling in Covid-Status Snooping Case

The National Labor Relations Board dismissed allegations that a Philadelphia community health center illegally fired a worker, deferring to an arbitrator’s earlier decision that upheld the termination for unauthorized access to a Covid-19-related patient record.

Finding the arbitration met the legal threshold for deferral in the board’s 2019 decision in United Parcel Service, Inc., a three-member NLRB panel Thursday granted Spectrum Health Services Inc.’s request for summary judgment.

The panel also denied NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo’s bid to overturn that Trump-era deferral standard and reinstitute the higher deferral bar from the board’s 2014 decision in Babcock & Wilcox ...