Declaring the NLRB’s rationale to be “nonsense,” on March 26, 2024, a unanimous three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Stern Produce Company Inc v. NLRB, refused to enforce...more
4/1/2024
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Appellate Courts ,
Corporate Counsel ,
EEO ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employment Policies ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Surveillance ,
Unfair Labor Practices
Late summer brings picnics, hiking, and general fun. It also brings a slew of NLRB decisions as the agency’s fiscal year comes to an end on September 30. One of the more highly-anticipated decisions concerns the lawfulness of...more
Late summer brings picnics, hiking, and general fun. It also brings a slew of NLRB decisions as the agency’s fiscal year comes to an end on September 30. One of the more highly-anticipated decisions concerns the lawfulness of...more
As foreshadowed by the NLRB General Counsel’s August 2021 Advice Memorandum, the vacillating standard for the legality of employer handbooks and policies and confidentiality requirements during open employer-investigations...more
3/11/2022
/ Boeing ,
Confidentiality Agreements ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Labor Reform ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Section 7
In AT&T Mobility LLC , 370 NLRB No. 121 (2021), the NLRB majority (Members Ring and Emanuel) held that the Employer could lawfully maintain a workplace policy prohibiting its workers from recording conversations with their...more
Over the past few years, the National Labor Relations Board has frequently weighed in on employer’s workplace and employee handbook policies, examining whether an employer’s policy impacts employees’ rights under Section 7 of...more
As we have discussed before, several years ago, the Board instituted a significant paradigm shift in analyzing the lawfulness of employers’ handbook policies in relation to employees’ Section 7 rights, when it issued its...more
The NLRB’s Division of Advice recently released a long-awaited Advice Memorandum (originally issued in February 2019, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Case 28-CA-229134 (Feb. 22, 2019)) concerning the validity of two workplace rules...more
12/2/2020
/ Boeing ,
Civility ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Government Investigations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Activity ,
Reasonableness Factors ,
Section 7
On July 15, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB”) Division of Advice published 16 Advice Memoranda addressing myriad questions posed by various Regional Offices.
While a majority of the Memoranda were drafted...more
7/22/2020
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Infectious Diseases ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Policy Memorandums ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Section 7 ,
Unfair Labor Practices
As we previously suggested, the NLRB’s adoption of the Boeing standard for determining the lawfulness of employer’s workplace rules, policies and handbook provisions has provided significant fodder for interesting cases....more
6/1/2020
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Boeing ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Infectious Diseases ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Section 7
Applying the facially neutral work rule test laid out in Boeing, the Board recently reversed an Administrative Law Judge decision, concluding that the employer maintained lawful workplace rules restricting employee use of (i)...more
2/24/2020
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Boeing ,
Confidentiality Agreements ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
NLRB ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Purple Communications ,
Section 7 ,
Workplace Safety
As anticipated, in one of the last decisions before the end of Member McFerran’s term, the NLRB issued another important opinion. Reverting back to precedent that preceded a 2015 decision, the Board, in Apogee Retail LLC...more
12/19/2019
/ #MeToo ,
Boeing ,
Confidential Information ,
Confidentiality Policies ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Gag Rule ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
Section 7 ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Workplace Investigations
The NLRB continues to issue decisions on a variety of interesting issues. On October 10, the Board held, in LA Specialty Produce Co., 368 NLRB No. 93 (Oct. 10, 2019), that an employer’s strong confidentiality protections and...more
During the last decade, a number of NLRB decisions faulted employers for written policies that were considered to be overbroad in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. These rulings sprang largely from the NLRB’s...more
2/27/2019
/ Appeals ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Policies ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Section 7 ,
Union Representatives ,
Unions
Last year about this time, the NLRB changed the standard for reviewing handbook rules. The new standard takes into consideration the fact there are many other interests other than the NLRA at play in a workplace, and seems to...more
12/24/2018
/ Data Retention ,
Duty to Preserve ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Litigation Hold ,
NLRB ,
Policy Memorandums ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Section 7 ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
The Board issued an interesting decision discussing an employer’s successful efforts to repudiate unlawful conduct, which we’ll get to in a minute. In our last post, we discussed a simmering dispute over the circumstances...more
By a vote of 50 to 48 the U.S. Senate confirmed Republican John Ring as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board, giving the agency a full five member complement. Member Ring, whose term expires December 16, 2022, takes...more
We have noted many times over the years how the NLRB’s zeal to review employer policies, or more correctly, fragments of employer policies, for lawfulness has led to nettlesome issues that rarely, if ever, involve actual...more
The new NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb has been fast at work. A short two weeks after being sworn in on November 17, 2017, the new General Counsel issued a memorandum making clear his intention to re-examine much of the...more
12/8/2017
/ Collective Bargaining ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Independent Contractors ,
Memorandum of Guidance ,
Misclassification ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Purple Communications ,
Rescission ,
Section 7 ,
Unions
Employers can prohibit the use by employees of the names, social security numbers and credit card numbers of customers in furtherance of organizational activities. If this seems like it should have been a foregone conclusion,...more
The change in a presidential administration always brings changes to government agencies, including the NLRB, as new appointments are made reflecting the policy preferences of the administration. The NLRB is not immune to...more
The first day of employment is often chaotic. New employees must learn their way around the jobsite, meet (and remember the names of) many new people and otherwise familiarize themselves with working at a new job. Oh, and...more
As we have seen repeatedly in the last year, the NLRB has taken it upon itself to police employer policies often finding a phrase or two to be a violation of the Act. In recent months we have seen the NLRB seemingly pullback...more
In the last couple of years, we have seen close scrutiny of employer handbooks by the NLRB. If the agency deems a policy, or a portion of a policy, to be something employees might reasonably construe to inhibit protected...more