Last month, I had the opportunity to speak to the American Law Institute for a CLE program on the latest guidance from the NLRB on various employee handbook policies.
When I first wrote about it in March, I had expected to followup shortly thereafter with another recap. But in the meantime, I found that much
As I talked in yesterday’s post, I moderated a community forum on Religion and the Workplace at my firm. We had a terrific crowd and I’m grateful to all the
The NLRB’s General Counsel’s office today released a lengthy report “concerning recent employer rule” cases.
That sounds generic. It’s not.
Rather, the NLRB is now outlining its views on otherwise-neutral employer policies and whether they could be deemed to
I sound like a broken record, but once again, the NLRB is striking down reasonable rules as unreasonable.
My colleague, Gary Starr (as always, read his bio here), today shares a recent case from the NLRB that found that a “Values and Standards of Behavior Policy” of one employer — something that you might think
I’ll admit something that might seem a little unusual and ironic: I’ve grown a bit tired about writing about the NLRB and social media.
Perhaps, it’s because I’ve seen too many law firms and lawyers issuing newsletters, blog posts, and alerts each time the NLRB says something, anything, about social media.
On Monday, the Connecticut Bar Association held its annual meeting. Lots of labor and employment law topics were covered, some of which I missed. I’ve asked one of my bar colleagues, Rita Trivedi — who will be a Teaching Program Fellow at Columbia Law School in the fall — to share her insights on the events. My thanks to Rita for the contribution.
First up: A recap of NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s address to the meeting.
It’s been a busy year at the National Labor Relations Board, and Acting General Counsel (ACG) Lafe Solomon’s address at the Connecticut Bar Association’s Annual Meeting gave practitioners much to think about.
Among the highlights:
In general, many employer handbooks have clauses that provide that the employee is and will remain at-will, unless that status is changed by the company’s top executive (either in writing or otherwise). Intended to prevent a change based on the casual statements of a manager or co-worker, at-will clauses have become a bastion of employment policy.
Yet, according to Solomon, if an employee could reasonably believe that this kind of clause means that even union representation and a collective bargaining agreement cannot alter his or her at-will status, the employee might conclude that organization is futile – in which case the employer’s provision might violate the NLRA.
What then should management attorneys and their clients do to address what Solomon recognized as a valid concern?
Through a passionate discussion on all sides at the meeting, the takeaway seems murky, and few concrete examples or models came to light. Savings clauses to the effect that nothing in the policy infringes on rights under the NLRA will likely be insufficient to prevent exposure. Continue Reading Guest Post: NLRB Acting General Counsel Addresses At-Will Disclaimers and More at CBA Annual Meeting
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.
(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
The NLRB today released new guidance on what is appropriate for employers to include in their social media policies. You can download the guidance here.
I’ll have more on the guidance in a post later but in my quick read of the guidance, I was struck by three things:
1) Employers that have attempted to
I had the opportunity to speak today at Wesfacca’s Day of Social Media program. If you’re looking for great information as an in house counsel, I would strongly recommend ordering the CLE materials.
There were a number of issues brought up that were discussed but there were two that I haven’t seen addressed much elsewhere.
Last year, I mentioned that I was growing a bit tired about writing about social media in the workplace.
It’s not that the topic isn’t interesting; it’s just that there isn’t that much new to discuss. For those of us who have been writing about it for years, we’ve seen much of this for a