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…
Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) protect employees from retaliation for concerted protected activity. Protected concerted activity generally involves two or more employees discussing working conditions like pay, benefits, etc. One of the employees who lost his job at Twitter this month — a…
Shout out to the National Labor Relations Board — specifically, the Board’s General Counsel. The timing of yesterday’s announcement of her new memo to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices was **chef’s kiss** It came just after I announced…
TBH, I didn’t expect this edition of The Employer Handbook Zoom Happy Hour to overwhelm the Zoom servers with a massive audience. Often, when I write about labor (rather than employment) on this blog, the clicks are, err, less click-y. But, between Amazon and Starbucks, the overall rise in union…
American support for labor unions is at its highest level in over 50 years, and most non-union workers would consider joining a union. With the increased popularity of organized labor and the National Labor Relations Board making it easier for unions to organize and employees to show union support, are…
Selfishly, a professional perk of a changing White House administration is the business that follows from counseling clients on the new rules when administrative agencies change their rules. For example, as a holdover from the Trump Administration, the Republican majority at the National Labor Relations Board implemented a new joint-employer rule.…
Usually, when you reach the intersection of exotic dancers and employment law, you find Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuits, like this one, about misclassifying dancers as independent contractors. But this situation. This one is different. Very different. According to Otillia Steadman, writing here for Buzzfeed News, a group of strippers…
Image Credit: u/AMasterfulWriter on Reddit. Not even in Kentucky. Over on the r/antiwork Subreddit, a goldmine for employment law blog fodder, a Redditor posted this notice that a boss displayed in the breakroom at work and asked, “is this sign legal?” The sign reads: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, CONVERSING ABOUT WAGES (BOTH…