The Labor Law Insider | Offensive Speech in the Workplace - Part II: Drawing the Line
On March 21, 2024, the New Jersey Appellate Division issued a decision in Zack v. Integra Lifesciences Corp. in which the court upheld the termination of a White woman based on public posts she made on Facebook during...more
Only a few days after being hired by the University of Michigan’s football program as the assistant director of football recruiting, Glenn Schembechler (son of longtime Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler) resigned after his...more
A ruling of the National Labor Relations Board in favor of an employee fired for using vulgar language on a company bulletin board was affirmed in August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. ...more
On August 9, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) had adequate justification to rule that an aluminum manufacturer (“Constellium”) violated the...more
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling concerning the discharge of Michael Harris from his position with the City of Schertz as the city marshal. In doing so, the Fifth Circuit gave a bit more clarity on...more
One would assume if an employee were to openly use highly offensive racists slurs, unashamedly display Swastika tattoos, leave fake drugs on their desk, encourage children to physically abuse a colleague or urinate in public...more
As we have often discussed, there is a fine line between protected and unprotected activity. Profane outbursts, deliberate misconduct, or highly-disruptive strikes may fall outside the protection of the NLRA, subjecting...more
The Trump-era National Labor Relations Board has struck again. On July 21, 2020 in General Motors LLC, 14-CA-197985, 369 NLRB No. 127 (2020), the NLRB overruled longstanding precedent and rejected “setting-specific”...more
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) provided useful clarity on when an act by an employee is done “in the course of employment” making the employer liable. The claimant had seen a colleague’s social media post featuring a...more
It is lawful to discipline and even discharge an employee for making inappropriate or offensive remarks in the workplace. Indeed, current anti-harassment and anti-bullying laws may require an employer to take adverse action...more
In Constellium Rolled Products Ravenswood, LLC, the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled in a 2-1 decision that the employer unlawfully discharged an employee who had written “whore board” on an overtime sign-up...more
• Regulations issued on July 1, 2018, by California's Fair Employment and Housing Council (FEHC) expand the Fair Employment and Housing Act's (FEHA) protections against national origin discrimination. • California employers...more
Employers need to be on the lookout for instances of offensive employee speech, which may put them between a rock and a hard place as they navigate potential claims under either anti-discrimination laws or federal labor laws....more
Use of profanity by employees, whether in the workplace, outside the workplace, or on social media, presents difficult legal issues for the employer, as highlighted by a recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision...more
A politically divided nation can mean a politically divided workplace. While employers generally hesitate to react to employees’ expression of political views, some comments viewed as extreme, threatening or inconsistent with...more
Many people enjoy spouting off what they view as 140-character tidbits of wisdom on the social media platform Twitter. But recently several individuals have found themselves in trouble with their employers (read: former...more
On June 24, 2015, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a new decision involving allegations that an employer had unlawfully discharged an employee who had scrawled sexually-oriented obscenities and threatening...more
Maybe not, according to a recently published NLRB decision. In Pier Sixty LLC, a majority of a three-member NLRB panel affirmed an ALJ’s decision that the employer violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor...more
Ninth Circuit Reviews Enforceability of Waiver of Right to Reemployment - Does California Business and Professions Code § 16600 prohibit employees from waiving their right to reemployment with prior employers? The...more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that Pier Sixty LLC, a New York catering service, violated federal labor law by firing an employee server after he posted a Facebook message protesting supervisory abuse...more
In this Issue: - Immigration - State Round-Up - Best Practices - Retaliation - Employment Discrimination - Excerpt from Immigration; Spouses of H-1B visa holders will be eligible for work...more
Hard to believe, but this spring was the first time an Oklahoma case answered the question whether offensive language directed by an employee toward a supervisor disqualifies the fired employee from receiving unemployment...more