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Article: Prohibiting employee conversations
July 10, 2005 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo

In both unionized and non-union workplaces employers may have work rules that forbid such things as:

- having "negative conversations" about managers

- making "false, vicious, profane or malicious statements toward or concerning [the employer] or any of its employees"

- using "abusive or profane language"

- "verbal, mental and physical abuse"

- "harassment . . . in any way"

No problem? Think again. These quotes were taken from actual NLRB decisions in which the employers were held to be in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

It didn't matter whether the employers were unionized or non-union.

As this article points out:

There are numerous decisions by the NLRB holding that the mere maintenance of an overly broad work rule violates the law. The liberal members of the five-member NLRB, who were appointed by President Bill Clinton, penned many of these decisions. Despite the presence of a more conservative NLRB comprised of President George W. Bush's appointments, the decisions issued within the past year do not indicate an imminent change in the law.

The article: "National Labor Relations Board Holds That Union-Free and Unionized Employers Cannot Prohibit Employees From Having “Negative Conversations” About Their Managers"

The author: Alan Model, a principal at Grotta, Glassman & Hoffman, a management-side law firm.

My view: Many employers continue to believe they can ignore the NLRB. Sadly, some lawyers believe this also. Truth is, they can't. A significant percentage of NLRB decisions involve non-union employers. Alan Model's article focuses on work rules that restrict what employees can say about management and about other employees, but this is only one aspect of the workplace where the NLRB gets involved.

 

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