I’ve had a little more time to digest the latest memo from the NLRB opining on what is and what isn’t appropriate for employers to have in their policies. And I’ve come to a very serious conclusion:

It’s an utter mess. 

New Guidance = Utter Mess

(Fellow employment lawyers use the phrases “bungled mess” (Jon Hyman), “not good” (Molly DiBianca), and “Inconsistent, overreaching, it’s a hot tepid mess” (Eric Meyer) to describe the latest missive.)

For employers, make no mistake: This is the NLRB’s attempt at an all-out, crazy assault on an employer’s ability to have policies that have any teeth to them. Even the most innocuous of policies can get shot down by the NLRB as being over broad and illegal. 

For example, telling employees “Don’t release confidential guest, team member or company information. . . .” is now deemed to be “illegal” because it could, in the NLRB’s view, “reasonably be interpreted as prohibiting employees from discussing and disclosing information regarding their own conditions of employment, as well as the conditions of employment of employees other than themselves–activities that are clearly protected by Section 7.”Continue Reading After NLRB’s Memo, Drafting Employment Policies Got Trickier

With all the legislative developments in Connecticut over the last year or so, it’s tough to keep track of all of the changes that your company needs to consider to update your employee handbook and employment policies.

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of some of the changes to consider with a link to more information on each of them.

1) For your EEO policies, be sure to add “gender identity” as a protected category.   You may also want to consider adding language that your company will not discriminate based on “any other protected category under state or federal law” to protect you.
Continue Reading The Seven Updates To Consider to Your Employee Handbook

Yesterday, I started my recap of the Connecticut Bar Association seminar on social media & employment law that I had the opportunity to speak at. 

In today’s post, I’m going to focus on another portion of what NLRB Regional Director Jonathan Kreisberg said at the seminar — something that may impact employers that have

Connecticut is an at-will employment state, meaning that employers can terminate an employee’s employment for any reason at any time, with or without cause. Employees are also free to leave their jobs at any times.   There are exceptions, of course, to that general rule.  But overall, when an employer’s offer letter to an employee