Employers must remain watchful for increased union organizing at their workplaces. Those that dismiss the possibility that their employees would consider unionizing are often left disappointed and unionized when last minute anti-union campaigns in response to “surprise” representation petitions are “too little, too late.” Recent actions by the National Labor Relations Board—examples are below– highlight the need to prepare now, well before a union targets an employer.Continue Reading Watch for Unions At Your Doorstep!

In an apparent victory for employers, the NLRB’s General Counsel (“GC”) issued a pair of Advice Memoranda upholding handbook employment-at-will disclaimers comparable to provisions found unlawful several months ago by the same GC. In the Memos, found here and here, the GC concludes that the following disclaimers did not explicitly restrict employees’ protected activities and were not in response to union or other NLRA-protected activity:
Continue Reading NLRB General Counsel Backs Off Prohibiting All Employment-At-Will Disclaimers

Once again attacking personnel policies largely designed to comply with other laws, the National Labor Relations Board invalidated certain personnel policies protecting the dissemination of employee health information and personal identifiers. View the full decision by clicking on Costco Wholesale Inc.Continue Reading NLRB Nixes Still More Employer Policies in Costco

On Monday, August 20, a federal judge in Philadelphia upheld the Department of Labor ("DOL") rule setting minimum wage requirements for foreign workers holding H-2B visas. The proposed rule has drawn much attention, and criticism, because it potentially will cost $874,000,000 or more per year in increased labor costs for employers with H-2B visa holders.

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) is expected to issue a ruling shortly on whether employers can lawfully prohibit their employees and unions from using employer-owned e-mail and intranet systems to distribute union campaign materials. An NLRB decision favoring employee and union use of these internal communication avenues for union organizing and other NLRA-protected activities would effectively extend and be the NLRB’s “blessing” of its Acting General Counsel’s social media “rules” and guidelines discussed here and here.Continue Reading Employer’s E-Mail System May Become Tool for Union Organizing

NLRB holds that employer’s practice of requesting employees to keep internal investigations confidential violates the NLRA.

The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or "Board") is at it again, this time finding that an employer’s policy prohibiting employees from discussing ongoing investigations of employee misconduct infringes upon employees’ Section 7 rights in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act ("Act" or "NLRA"). Banner Health Sys. d/b/a Banner Estrella Med. Ctr., 358 NLRB No. 93 (July 30, 2012).Continue Reading NLRB Forbids “Do Not Discuss” Warnings to Employees During Confidential Investigations

In a decision that may extend to other state and federal courts, the National Labor Relations Board, and to labor arbitrations, Alaska’s Supreme Court became the first state or federal court to recognize an implied statutory privilege for union-employee communications during a disciplinary or grievance proceeding to block questioning about them. Comparable to confidential attorney-client communications, the privilege extends to confidential communications between an employee or the employee’s attorney and union representatives acting in their official capacity.  The communications must also relate to anticipated or ongoing disciplinary or grievance proceedings.Continue Reading Alaska First State to Recognize Union-Employee Privilege in Communications

Inserting itself once again in the relationship between employers and their non-union employees, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") recently settled a case in which the General Counsel alleged that certain common "at-will" disclaimers in employee handbooks and manuals violated the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA"). Raised but unresolved is the impact of this settlement on "at will" disclaimers in general. Continue Reading Legality of “At Will” Language in Employee Handbooks Left Unresolved

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon issued his third report on social media cases handled by the NLRB. Copies of all three memos are available here, here and here, in the order issued. Our previous blog post discussing the second memo can be found here.

The most recent, third report reviews 7 social media policies, finding 6, at least in part, violative of the National Labor Relations Act. Solomon found  the seventh policy compliant with the Act and attached that full policy to his memo.

Extracted from the six “violation” cases are the following examples of impermissible elements of social media policies.Continue Reading NLRB General Counsel Issues Third Report on Social Media Cases

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia voided the NLRB’s so-called “quickie election” rules because the NLRB lacked the quorum necessary when it adopted its Amended Election Rules to expedite the current union election process. See Chamber of Commerce, et al v. NLRB. Our more in-depth analysis of those amended rules is in our earlier post at here. As noted there, the United States Chamber of Commerce and several trade organizations sought to invalidate the rules on several legal grounds, including lack of quorum.Continue Reading NLRB’S “Quickie Election” Rules Invalidated