A recent National Labor Relations Board decision is a reminder that consistency is an important factor in determining whether an employer has committed an unfair labor practice. In the case of two Kroger subsidiaries, the NLRB held that the National Labor Relations Act protects an employee’s right to wear buttons and masks in support of Black Lives Matter.Continue Reading Consistency matters: When the employer speaks, the employees may answer
*Special thanks to Porter Wright summer law clerk, Grace Brown, for her assistance with this post.
It’s the summer of 2020, and someone from your company posts to her public Facebook page saying, “If Black people truly wanted equality, then they wouldn’t be isolating themselves into a separate group with Black Lives Matter. All lives matter!”
Your social media marketing team discovers the employee’s post after it was shared by someone who accuses that employee, and your company, of being racist.
What do you do?
Continue Reading How employers can respond to social justice and free speech issues on social media
With increasing frequency, employers are raising the question about what can (or can’t) be done with employees who speak about polarizing issues, whether at work or in a way that affects the work environment. This question is arising often because of our current social and political climate. The legal and practical implications are complex.
Continue Reading Employees and free speech
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) invited interested parties to submit feedback about when an employee’s offensive or inappropriate workplace comments should lose the protection of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Specifically, the NLRB is inviting employers and other parties to submit briefing about whether it should reconsider its standards for determining whether Section 7 of the NLRA protects employees who make “profane outbursts and offensive statements of a racial or sexual nature…during the course of otherwise protected activity.” By way of background, Section 7 of the NLRA gives employees the right to engage in “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” That can include raising work-related disputes or complaints. This right extends to all non-management employees, not just those represented by a union. But what if the employee raising specomplaints uses obscene or otherwise offensive language directed at a supervisor? In some NLRB cases, employee outbursts that have included offensive language have been shielded from punishment by the employer because the language was considered a part of protected speech.
Continue Reading NLRB invites businesses to provide feedback on when an employee’s offensive comments should lose the protection of federal labor law