On March 25, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision with potentially broad ramifications for employers involved in service contract arrangements. In New York New York, LLC, d/b/a New York New York Hotel & Casino, 356 NLRB No. 119, the Board considered issues arising from actions by off-duty employees of an onsite food service contractor seeking access to the hotel and casino property where they worked in order to handbill in connection with their union organizing activity. Addressing the "broader legal and policy questions raised by the factual pattern" involved, the Board held in a 3 to 1 decision that such off-duty contractor employees have a new type of access right based on the location where they are regularly employed. The Board majority stated: "we seek to establish an access standard that reflects the specific status of the [contractor] employees as protected employees who are not employees of the property owner, but who are regularly employed on the property." Under the new access standard, the Board found that the property owner did not have sufficient property or managerial interests to prohibit its contractor's employees' off-duty access to its property and consequently violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

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