As I continue to highlight some important employment law developments from this summer, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) caused a mild stir for employment law lawyers when it issued a decision in Stericycle, Inc.
This ruling introduces a fresh legal standard for assessing employers’ workplace policies and rules, with far-reaching implications for businesses
Last week, the NLRB issued a landmark decision in McLaren Macomb that is already shaking up how private employers (both unionized and non-unionized) should consider severance agreements.
My colleagues have the full recap of the decision over at our sister blog, Employment Law Letter, from Friday and I highly recommend reading that first.
The key
My colleagues Gary Starr and Jarad Lucan return today with a post that we have sent out as client alert, but which may be of interest to readers of the blog as well. It tackles the subject of protected concerted activity. (Hint: It may be broader than you think.)
Is a non-union employee who
On Friday, at my firm’s annual Labor & Employment Law seminar, I’ll be talking about the NLRB and Employee Handbooks with my colleague, Chris Engler. Among the topics we had planned to discuss was the ongoing Triple Play Sports Bar & Grille case that I had previously posted about here and here.
So of course yesterday, the Second Circuit released an long-awaited decision on that very case. And it’s a strikeout for the employer.
The case involves a mix of old and new concepts. Old: Employees have the right to improve the terms and conditions of their workplace — so called “Section 7” rights to protected concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act, even if they are not “unionized”. New: It applies to Facebook and other types of social media.
And now, even to Facebook “likes”.
In the case, Jillian Sanzone and Vincent Spinella, two employees of Triple Play Sports Bar and Grille, located in Watertown, discovered that they owed more in State income taxes than they had originally expected. One of the employees discussed this issue with co-workers, and complaints were made to the employer.
The discussion continued on Facebook, and a former employee, Jamie LaFrance, posted the following “status update” to her Facebook page: “Maybe someone should do the owners of Triple Play a favor and buy it from them. They can’t even do the tax paperwork correctly!!! Now I OWE money . . . W[*]f!!!!”
Continue Reading Employer Strikes Out; Facebook Likes Protected by NLRA, Says Second Circuit
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
As our big Labor Day weekend kicks off, it seems appropriate to bring back a “labor” topic, particularly when mixed with one of our favorite topics here: Social Media.
Today, my colleague Jarad Lucan returns with a case straight out of Connecticut with national implications.
As most readers of this blog have read before (
Two stories over the last few weeks have been percolating that may be of interest to employers in Connecticut. You may not see the impact immediately, but the implications are certainly there.
First, the EEOC is now looking to conduct more direct investigations — that is, investigations that are initiated without any claim by an
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
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
Last year, I talked a lot about a U.S. Supreme Court case that seemed to open the door for employers to use mandatory arbitration agreements that precluded employees from using class actions to sue their employers.
But I noted at the time that this was a quickly shifting landscape.
A few days ago, the NLRB