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
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
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
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. Continue reading
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 with health problems allegedly violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against an employee based on her disability, breast cancer.
Now, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing!
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 Board is swinging back toward employee rights.
What I failed to mention was that, with that shift, the Board is taking an aggressive position on how employers — union or not — may have to make employees whole for violations of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”). Continue reading
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 plaintiff in the WARN lawsuit we discussed yesterday — claims that his protected concerted activity motivated the company to end his employment. Continue reading
TBH, I didn’t expect this edition of The Employer Handbook Zoom Happy Hour to overwhelm the Zoom servers with a massive audience. Continue reading
American support for labor unions is at its highest level in over 50 years, and most non-union workers would consider joining a union. Continue reading
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