On February 12, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board decided to continue to protect the right of union members to post freely on Facebook and this time, even finds that the Union itself has no obligation to disavow or remove comments which very clearly threatened some of its members if they crossed the picket line. … Continue Reading
On Tuesday, Northwestern University student-athletes made a historic request: they asked to be recognized as employees of the university and to be represented by a labor union. This was more than a flippant comment or casual request; rather, the request came in the form of a petition filed in the Chicago office of the National … Continue Reading
In a highly anticipated decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to enforce the key portion of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) decision in D.R. Horton, Inc. In January 2012, the NLRB ruled that an arbitration agreement between an employer and an employee that required the employee to bring any claims against the … Continue Reading
For the past year, the NLRB has issued a large number of decisions on a multitude of issues. After today’s 47-page ruling [pdf] from DC Circuit Judges David B. Sentelle, Karen LeCraft Henderson and Thomas B. Griffith, those decisions are now invalid. The Court held that President Obama’s January 4, 2012 recess appointments of Sharon Block, … Continue Reading
As previously noted here, earlier this summer, the NLRB took a position that commonly used at-will employment disclaimers could be a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Yesterday, the Board’s acting general counsel issued advice memoranda on two cases providing much needed guidance after the decisions this summer. Specifically, the NLRB Office of … Continue Reading
This summer the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has taken the position that commonly used at‑will employment disclaimers could be a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Section 7 of the NLRA guarantees employees the right to engage in “concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” The … Continue Reading
As most employers know particularly from the NLRB’s recent activity in the area of social media as previously reported here, the National Labor Relations Act protects concerted activities of employees—not just union organizing or representation activity. Specifically, the NLRA provides that: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, … Continue Reading
On December 22, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) adopted a final rule which significantly modified, in certain respects, the procedure for processing representation petitions. The “ambush election” rule, which represents a scaled back version of a more comprehensive overhaul of election procedures proposed by the Board in June 2011, went into effect on … Continue Reading
On March 2, Judge Amy Berman of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the NLRB has the authority to promulgate the rule it adopted last year (previously commented on here) which will require employers to post a notice informing employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. After … Continue Reading
On January 4, 2011, President Obama announced that he was using his recess appointment powers to place Department of Labor Attorney Sharon Block (democrat), labor lawyer Richard Griffin (democrat), and NLRB counsel Terence Flynn (republican) to the NLRB (“Board”). The timing of the appointments was strategic as current board member Craig Becker’s term was set … Continue Reading
On December 23, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) announced that it would postpone the effective date of its employee rights notice-posting rule to April 30, 2012. This postponement marks the second time the rule has been delayed. The rule was officially set to take effect November 14, but in October, the effective … Continue Reading
The National Labor Relations Board won’t require employers to implement new posting requirements on November 14. Instead, employers will have until January 31, 2012 — over a two month extension. Will the new posting requirements, as previously reported, go away completely? Probably not. Although the NLRB extended the deadline, particularly to give medium and small … Continue Reading
As previously reported here, private employers will have a new poster to add to their bulletin boards for employees effective mid-November, 2011. That is unless the courts decide otherwise. Earlier this month, the National Association of Manufacturers (“NAM”), filed a lawsuit in the federal court for the District of Columbia to stop the NLRB from implementing … Continue Reading
As reported earlier this year, labor and employment lawyers and human resource personnel look to new decisions to help shed light on one of the fastest growing issues for employers—managing employee use of social media. Earlier this month, the NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon issued a report concerning nine recent cases that the agency … Continue Reading
Effective November 14, 2011, private employers will be required to post a workplace notice of employee rights under the National Labor Rights Act. The posting requirement is intended to inform all employees of their rights under the NLRA and is patterned, in part, after the posting requirements of the FLSA, the FMLA and the recent … Continue Reading
It’s a giant 16-foot balloon in the shape of a rat, and it is becomingly increasingly common in labor disputes. Unions display the giant balloon as a way of informing the public of their dissatisfaction with the targeted employer, i.e., the “rat employer”. But should it be viewed legally as a picket? The question is quite an … Continue Reading
In the current era where social media infiltrates the workplace and a recent case settled where the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) felt employees who criticized their supervisors on Facebook were engaged in protected activity, employers now have to think twice before reprimanding employees because of their “tweets.” (For more information on recent case, see … Continue Reading
