GMCS Commentary: Labor relations professionals and attorneys have
spent the last two days contemplating the impact to employers of this latest General
Counsel Memos for National Labor Relations Board, GC 15-04, 03/18/2015 12:00 AM EDT,
Report of the General Counsel
Concerning Employer Rules.
This article gives a nice breakdown as it relates
to employers and their employee policy manuals.
On March 18, 2015, NLRB General Counsel Richard F.
Griffin, Jr. issued General Counsel Memorandum GC 15-04 containing extensive guidance
as to the General Counsel’s views as to what types employer polices and rules,
in handbooks and otherwise, will be considered by the NLRB investigators and
regional offices to be lawful and which are likely to be found to unlawfully interfere
with employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act.
This GC Memo is highly relevant to all employers in all
industries that are under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations
Board, regardless of whether they have union represented employees.
Because the Office of the General Counsel investigates
unfair labor practice charges and the NLRB’s Regional Directors act on behalf
of the General Counsel when they determine whether a charge has legal merit,
the memo is meaningful to all employers and offers important guidance as to
what language and policies are likely to be found to interfere with employees’
rights under the Act, and what type of language the NLRB will find does not
interfere and may be lawfully maintained, so long as it is consistently and
non-discriminatorily applied and enforced.
As explained in the Memorandum, the Board’s legal
standard for deciding whether an employer policy unlawfully interferes with
employees’ rights under the Act is generally whether “employees would
reasonably construe the rules to prohibit Section 7 activity” – that is action
of a concerted nature intended to address issues with respect to employees’
terms and conditions of employment. This General Counsel and Board have
consistently given these terms broad interpretations and have found many
employer policies and procedures, in handbooks and elsewhere, that appear
neutral and appropriate on their face, to violate the Act and interfere with
employee rights. Many of these cases have involved non-union workplaces where
there is not a union present and there is no union activity in progress.
The Memorandum offers a recap of NLRB decisions
concerning eight broad categories of policies, with summaries of the Board’s
holdings and examples of policy language that the NLRB has found to unlawfully
interfere with employees’ Section 7 rights and policy language that the Board
has found did not unlawfully interfere with employees’ rights. The Memorandum
will be of interest to employers and attorneys who draft, apply and enforce
handbooks and other workplace policy documents.
Confidentiality
1. Employer handbook rules regarding confidentiality.
The Memorandum reviews the Board’s precedents holding that “Employees have a
Section 7 right to discuss wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of
employment with fellow employees, as well as nonemployees such as union
representatives.”
Interestingly, the Memorandum also states that “broad
prohibitions on disclosing ‘confidential’ information are lawful so long as
they do not reference information regarding employees or anything that would
reasonably be considered a term or condition of employment, because employers
have a substantial and legitimate interest in maintaining the privacy of
certain business information.” The Memorandum further “clarifies” by
advising that “an otherwise unlawful confidentiality rule will be found lawful
if, when viewed in context, employees would not reasonably understand the
rule to prohibit Section 7 protected activity.”
Employee conduct toward supervisors
2. Employer handbook rules regarding employee conduct
toward the company and supervisors. As explained in the Memorandum,
“Employees also have the Section 7 right to criticize or protest their
employer’s labor policies or treatment of employees.”
The Memorandum offers an overview of decisional law, with
particular attention to cases involving rules that prohibit employees “from
engaging in ‘disrespectful,’ ’negative,’ ‘inappropriate,’ or ‘rude’ conduct
towards the employer or management, absent sufficient clarification or
context.” As further noted, employee criticism of the employer “will not lose
the Act’s protection simply because the criticism is false or defamatory.”
Conduct toward fellow employees
3. Employer handbook rules regulating conduct
towards fellow employees. This section of the Memorandum focuses on
language and policies that the Board has found to interfere with the Section 7
right employees have “to argue and debate with each other about unions,
management, and their terms and conditions of employment,” which the General
Counsel explains the Board has held will not lose their protection under the
Act, “even if it includes ‘intemperate, abusive and inaccurate statements.”
Of particular interest in this portion of the Memorandum
is the examination of policies concerning harassment. The Memorandum notes that
“although employers have a legitimate and substantial interest in maintaining a
harassment-free workplace, anti-harassment rules cannot be so broad that
employees would reasonably read them as prohibiting vigorous debate or
intemperate comments regarding Section 7 protected subjects.”
Interaction with media and other third parties
4. Employer handbook rules regarding employee
interaction with third parties. This section of the Memorandum
focuses on employer policies and provisions that seek to regulate and restrict
employee contact with and communications to the media relating to their
employment. The General Counsel notes that “(A)nother right employees have
under Section 7 is the right to communicate with the new media, government
agencies, and other third parties about wages, benefits, and other terms and
conditions of employment,” and that rules “that reasonably would be read to
restrict such communications are unlawful.” The General Counsel acknowledges,
however, that “employers may lawfully control who makes official statements for
the company,”and that any such rules must be drafted so as “to ensure that
their rules would not reasonably be read to ban employees from speaking to the
media or third parties on their own (or other employees’”) behalf.
Company logos, trademarks
5. Employer Handbook rules restricting use of
company logos, copyrights and trademarks. The Board has found many employer
policies, whether contained in employee handbooks or elsewhere, that broadly
prohibit employees from using logos, copyrights and trademarks to
unlawfully interfere with employees’ Section 7 rights. While the General
Counsel acknowledges that “copyright holders have a clear interest in
protecting their intellectual property,” the Board has found, with the approval
of such courts as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, that “handbook rules
cannot prohibit employees’ fair protected use of that property.”
In this regard the General Counsel states in the
Memorandum that it is his office’s position that “employees have a right to use
the name and logo on picket signs’ leaflets, and other protected materials,”
and that “employers’ proprietary interests are not implicated by employees’
non-commercial use of a name, logo, or other trademark to identify the employer
in the course of Section 7 activity.”
Photography and recording
6. Employer handbook rules restricting photography and
recording. While many handbooks and policies prohibit or seek to restrict
employees from taking photographs or making recordings in the workplace and on
employer policy, the Memorandum states that “employees have Section 7 right to
photograph and make recordings in furtherance of their protected concerted
activity, including the right to use personal devices to take such pictures
make recordings.” The Memorandum further notes that such policies will be found
to be overbroad “where they would reasonably be read to prohibit the taking of
pictures or recordings on non-work time.”
Leaving work
7. Employer handbook rules restricting employees from
leaving work. With respect to handbook or other policies that restrict
employees from leaving the workplace or from failing to report when scheduled,
the Memorandum notes that “one of the most fundamental rights employees have
under Section 7 of the Act is the right to go on strike,” and therefore “rules
that regulate when an employee can leave work are unlawful if employees
reasonably would read them to forbid protected strike actions and
walkouts.”
Not all rules concerning absences and leaving the
workstations are unlawful. A rule would be lawful if “such a rule makes no
mention of ‘strikes,’ ‘walkouts,’ ‘disruptions’ or the like” since employees
should “reasonably understand the rule to pertain to employees leaving their
posts for reasons unrelated to protected concerted activity.”
Conflict of interest rules
8. Employer conflict of interest rules. The
Memorandum states that under Section 7 of the Act, employees have the right to
engage in concerted activity to improve their terms and conditions of
employment, even if that activity is in conflict with the employer’s interests.
It cites as examples of such activities that could arguably be in violation of
broad conflict of interest policies as protests outside the employer’s
business, organizing a boycott of the employer’s products and services and solicitation
of support for a union while on non-work time. The Memorandum notes that when a
conflict of interest policy “includes examples of otherwise clarifies
that it limited to legitimate business interests (note: as that term is
defined by the General Counsel and the Board) employees will reasonably
understand the rule to prohibit only unprotected activity.”
Adam C. Abrahms is a member of the law firm Epstein
Becker Green in the Labor and Employment and Health Care and Life Sciences
practices, in the firm's Los Angeles office. Steven M. Swirsky is a member of
the firm in the Labor and Employment and Health Care and Life Sciences
practices, in the firm's New York office.
Source: Employee
Benefit News
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