After years of expanding Section 7 rights during the Obama administration, the NLRB earlier this month began reining in the protection afforded to employee complaints in a 3-1 decision in Alstate Maintenance, LLC. In Alstate, a Kennedy International Airport skycap, Trevor Greenidge, refused to assist an arriving soccer team with their baggage and equipment, telling his supervisor, “We did a similar job a year prior and we didn’t receive a tip for it.” When a van carrying the team’s equipment arrived, airline managers motioned for the charging party and three co-workers to assist. Instead, they walked away and did not …
Tag Archives: Section 7
First NLRB Decision on Employer Social Media Policies
Employers adopting social media policies have to consider whether they would be struck down by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) if challenged as invalid under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. Section 7 protects the rights of union, as well as non-union, employees to communicate at or away from work about terms and conditions of employment. Citing a desire to provide guidance to employers regarding workplace regulation of employee use of social media, the chief lawyer for the NLRB (its “General Counsel”) issued guidance reports in August 2011, January 2012 and May 2012 to show what …
NLRB Creates Pre-emptive Strike Unfair Labor Practice
Over the past few weeks, we have documented the NLRB’s efforts to expand worker rights through rule-making and General Counsel directives. On January 28, 2011, however, the Board went back to its traditional means of fashioning federal labor policy by issuing its decision in Parexel International, LLC., 356 NLRB No. 82 (January 28, 2011).
In Parexel, the charging party had a conversation with a co-worker about whether he received a wage increase after he had left and then returned to work for the company. He indicated (apparently falsely) that in fact he had received a raise and …
