About a year ago, a media organization fired one of its reporters after it found his ‘inflammatory’ Instagram posts (NSFW) showing clips of his off-the-clock standup comedy routines. Last week, an arbitrator, who found some of the reporter’s jokes ‘funny,’ ordered the company to rehire him. Why? I’ll explain by…
Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board swung the pendulum even further in favor of unions when it issued its Final Rule on joint employment. In a press release, the Board described the new standard like this: An entity may be considered a joint employer of a group of employees if…
On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC that it claims in this press release will “effectuate employees’ right to bargain through representatives of their choosing and improve the fairness and integrity of Board-conducted elections.” That’s one way of putting it. Until…
It was bound to happen sooner or later, tbh. As Presidents change from Democrat to Republican to Democrat, the complexion of the five-member (well, four now) National Labor Relations Board flips from union-friendly to management-friendly to union-friendly. And as the pendulum swings hard one way or the other, big “precedential”…
Yesterday, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo claiming that the “proffer, maintenance, and enforcement non-compete provisions in employment contracts and severance agreements violate the National Labor Relations Act except in limited circumstances.” Other labor and employment lawyers may forebode the end for most non-competes. Me?…
Last month, I told about a National Labor Relations Board decision to ban certain nondisparagement and confidentiality provisions in a severance agreement that businesses give to rank-and-file employees (i.e., non-supervisors) in both union and non-union workplaces. But there remained some open questions. For example, does the decision apply retroactively to old agreements?…
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board made headlines when it concluded that nondisparagement and confidentiality provisions in severance agreements that businesses give to rank-and-file employees are unlawful. Yesterday, the Board made headlines again by releasing this Advice Memo in which it concluded that employees who engage in group discussions about issues of…
On February 21, the National Labor Relations Board decided (here) that nondisparagement and confidentiality provisions in a severance agreement that businesses give to employees are unlawful. The case involved a situation not unlike many your business may have encountered before. In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions caused the employer to furlough 11 employees because…
I read on the U.S. Department of Labor website that unions help employees improve the workplace with “enhancements” such as “flexible scheduling, protections against harassment and safer working conditions – that improve the quality of jobs and workers’ well-being.” However, a union non-profit that touts itself as a provider of help to workers…
On Friday’s edition of The Employer Handbook Zoom Office Happy Hour — catch the replay here if you missed it — we talked about 2022 changes in the law that could impact 2023 updates to your employee handbook. One talked briefly about how the pendulum at the National Labor Relations…