Employer handbooks: 8 areas to watch

On March 18, 2015, NLRB General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr. issued General Counsel Memorandum GC 15-04 containing extensive guidance as to the General Counsel’s views as to what types employer polices and rules, in handbooks and otherwise, will be considered by the NLRB investigators and regional offices to be lawful and which are likely to be found to unlawfully interfere with employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

This GC Memo is highly relevant to all employers in all industries that are under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board, regardless of whether they have union represented employees.

Because the Office of the General Counsel investigates unfair labor practice charges and the NLRB’s Regional Directors act on behalf of the General Counsel when they determine whether a charge has legal merit, the memo is meaningful to all employers and offers important guidance as to what language and policies are likely to be found to interfere with employees’ rights under the Act, and what type of language the NLRB will find does not interfere and may be lawfully maintained, so long as it is consistently and non-discriminatorily applied and enforced.

Also see: NLRB: Employer policies vs. worker rights

As explained in the Memorandum, the Board’s legal standard for deciding whether an employer policy unlawfully interferes with employees’ rights under the Act is generally whether “employees would reasonably construe the rules to prohibit Section 7 activity” – that is action of a concerted nature intended to address issues with respect to employees’ terms and conditions of employment. This General Counsel and Board have consistently given these terms broad interpretations and have found many employer policies and procedures, in handbooks and elsewhere, that appear neutral and appropriate on their face, to violate the Act and interfere with employee rights. Many of these cases have involved non-union workplaces where there is not a union present and there is no union activity in progress.

The Memorandum offers a recap of NLRB decisions concerning eight broad categories of policies, with summaries of the Board’s holdings and examples of policy language that the NLRB has found to unlawfully interfere with employees’ Section 7 rights and policy language that the Board has found did not unlawfully interfere with employees’ rights. The Memorandum will be of interest to employers and attorneys who draft, apply and enforce handbooks and other workplace policy documents.

Confidentiality

1. Employer handbook rules regarding confidentiality. The Memorandum reviews the Board’s precedents holding that “Employees have a Section 7 right to discuss wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment with fellow employees, as well as nonemployees such as union representatives.”

Also see: Tips on writing an employee handbook

Interestingly, the Memorandum also states that “broad prohibitions on disclosing ‘confidential’ information are lawful so long as they do not reference information regarding employees or anything that would reasonably be considered a term or condition of employment, because employers have a substantial and legitimate interest in maintaining the privacy of certain business information.”  The Memorandum further “clarifies” by advising that “an otherwise unlawful confidentiality rule will be found lawful if, when viewed in context, employees would not reasonably understand the rule to prohibit Section 7 protected activity.”

Employee conduct toward supervisors

2. Employer handbook rules regarding employee conduct toward the company and supervisors. As explained in the Memorandum, “Employees also have the Section 7 right to criticize or protest their employer’s labor policies or treatment of employees.” 

The Memorandum offers an overview of decisional law, with particular attention to cases involving rules that prohibit employees “from engaging in ‘disrespectful,’ ’negative,’ ‘inappropriate,’ or ‘rude’ conduct towards the employer or management, absent sufficient clarification or context.” As further noted, employee criticism of the employer “will not lose the Act’s protection simply because the criticism is false or defamatory.”

 

Conduct toward fellow employees

 

3. Employer handbook rules regulating conduct towards fellow employees. This section of the Memorandum focuses on language and policies that the Board has found to interfere with the Section 7 right employees have “to argue and debate with each other  about unions, management, and their terms and conditions of employment,” which the General Counsel explains the Board has held will not lose their protection under the Act, “even if it includes ‘intemperate, abusive and inaccurate statements.”

Also see: Top employment issues of 2015

Of particular interest in this portion of the Memorandum is the examination of policies concerning harassment. The Memorandum notes that “although employers have a legitimate and substantial interest in maintaining a harassment-free workplace, anti-harassment rules cannot be so broad that employees would reasonably read them as prohibiting vigorous debate or intemperate comments regarding Section 7 protected subjects.”

Interaction with media and other third parties

4. Employer handbook rules regarding employee interaction with third parties.  This section of the Memorandum focuses on employer policies and provisions that seek to regulate and restrict employee contact with and communications to the media relating to their employment. The General Counsel notes that “(A)nother right employees have under Section 7 is the right to communicate with the new media, government agencies, and other third parties about wages, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment,” and that rules “that reasonably would be read to restrict such communications are unlawful.” The General Counsel acknowledges, however, that “employers may lawfully control who makes official statements for the company,”and that any such rules must be drafted so as “to ensure that their rules would not reasonably be read to ban employees from speaking to the media or third parties on their own (or other employees’”) behalf.

Company logos, trademarks

 

5. Employer Handbook rules restricting use of company logos, copyrights and trademarks. The Board has found many employer policies, whether contained in employee handbooks or elsewhere, that broadly prohibit employees from using logos, copyrights and trademarks to unlawfully interfere with employees’ Section 7 rights. While the General Counsel acknowledges that “copyright holders have a clear interest in protecting their intellectual property,” the Board has found, with the approval of such courts as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, that “handbook rules cannot prohibit employees’ fair protected use of that property.” 

Also see: NLRB offers long-awaited guidance on social media policies

In this regard the General Counsel states in the Memorandum that it is his office’s position that “employees have a right to use the name and logo on picket signs’ leaflets, and other protected materials,” and that “employers’ proprietary interests are not implicated by employees’ non-commercial use of a name, logo, or other trademark to identify the employer in the course of Section 7 activity.”

Photography and recording

6. Employer handbook rules restricting photography and recording. While many handbooks and policies prohibit or seek to restrict employees from taking photographs or making recordings in the workplace and on employer policy, the Memorandum states that “employees have Section 7 right to photograph and make recordings in furtherance of their protected concerted activity, including the right to use personal devices to take such pictures make recordings.” The Memorandum further notes that such policies will be found to be overbroad “where they would reasonably be read to prohibit the taking of pictures or recordings on non-work time.”

Leaving work

7. Employer handbook rules restricting employees from leaving work. With respect to handbook or other policies that restrict employees from leaving the workplace or from failing to report when scheduled, the Memorandum notes that “one of the most fundamental rights employees have under Section 7 of the Act is the right to go on strike,” and therefore “rules that regulate when an employee can leave work are unlawful if employees reasonably would read them to forbid protected strike actions and walkouts.” 

Also see: NLRB decides employer email systems permitted for union organizing

Not all rules concerning absences and leaving the workstations are unlawful. A rule would be lawful if “such a rule makes no mention of ‘strikes,’ ‘walkouts,’ ‘disruptions’ or the like” since employees should “reasonably understand the rule to pertain to employees leaving their posts for reasons unrelated to protected concerted activity.”

Conflict of interest rules

8. Employer conflict of interest rules. The Memorandum states that under Section 7 of the Act, employees have the right to engage in concerted activity to improve their terms and conditions of employment, even if that activity is in conflict with the employer’s interests. It cites as examples of such activities that could arguably be in violation of broad conflict of interest policies as protests outside the employer’s business, organizing a boycott of the employer’s products and services and solicitation of support for a union while on non-work time. The Memorandum notes that when a conflict of interest policy “includes examples of otherwise clarifies that it limited to legitimate business interests (note: as that term is defined by the General Counsel and the Board) employees will reasonably understand the rule to prohibit only unprotected activity.”

Adam C. Abrahms is a member of the law firm Epstein Becker Green in the Labor and Employment and Health Care and Life Sciences practices, in the firm's Los Angeles office. Steven M. Swirsky is a member of the firm in the Labor and Employment and Health Care and Life Sciences practices, in the firm's New York office. 

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