Articles Posted in Unions (labor relations)

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On Friday evening, a Texas federal judge blocked a proposed National Labor Relations Board rule that would have made it much easier for employees to unionize when he determined that enforcing the Board’s proposed joint employer rule “would be contrary to the law” and “arbitrary and capricious.”

I’ll give you a little refresher on the Board’s proposal. Then, we’ll examine where it fell apart. Continue reading

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board decided that a NON-union employer cannot require employees to remove “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) insignia from their work uniform when the BLM marking is a “logical outgrowth” of earlier group protests about racial discrimination in their workplace.

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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. Continue reading

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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. Continue reading

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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? I ain’t scared. Continue reading

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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? What if the employee requests mutual confidentiality language or nondisparagement provisions? What other typical severance agreement provisions are at risk? 

Yesterday, we got answers from the Board’s top lawyer. (You may want to sit down and grab a whiskey bottle stress ball.) Continue reading

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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 race that black employees face at work, including perceived implicit bias work, are protected from retaliation by employers. Continue reading

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