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
On October 28, 2019, the Ninth Circuit, following in the footsteps of the D.C. Circuit and the Second Circuit, affirmed an order entered by the NLRB confirming that prohibitions on secondary boycotts under Section...more
10/31/2019
/ Boycotts ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Policies ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Labor Disputes ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Secondary Boycott ,
Strike ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Union Representatives ,
Unions
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
This summer has been punctuated by walkouts. We have seen walkouts in support of a $15 minimum wage and walkouts to protest the sale of goods to the government. Walking off the job is, of course, a staple of labor action, and...more
7/31/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Policies ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Protected Activity ,
Strike ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wal-Mart
Information requests in the realm of labor relations are simple in theory but can be complicated in practice. We have seen how the topics of information sought by a union can cause skirmishes, sometimes deliberately so. We...more
4/5/2019
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Business Conduct Standards ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Confidential Information ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Policies ,
Information Requests ,
NLRB ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour
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
The right of employees to band together for purposes of bringing grievances to their employer is at the very core of the National Labor Relations Act, as embodied in Section 7. This right is called protected concerted...more
In prior posts, we have discussed how information requests made in the context of a bargaining relationship can be vexing. The standard of the employer’s obligation to provide information can be a moving target, depending on...more
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
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 end of September in most years sees a spate of new NLRB decisions, sometimes dozens, issued on or about September 30, to coincide with the end of the agency’s fiscal year. Not so this past September 30 because of the...more
10/10/2017
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Adverse Action ,
Coercion ,
Email ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Interrogations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Professional Disciplinary Actions ,
Termination ,
Totality of Circumstances Test ,
Trump Administration ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions ,
Witness Statements
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
We know that, among many other common employer policies, the NLRB considers many mandatory arbitration agreements to be unlawful, particularly where they prohibit class or collective actions. See Murphy Oil USA, Inc., 361...more