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NLRB General Counsel Shines Guideline Light on Employer Work Rules

By Thomas G. Servodidio and Adam Keating
September 02, 2015

In an effort to “help employers to review their handbooks and other rules, and conform them if necessary, to ensure that they are lawful,” the National Labor Relations Board's (the Board) general counsel recently issued a 30-page memorandum setting forth guidance on employers' internal personnel policies to ensure compliance with the National Labor Relations Act (the Act). The report is relevant to nearly all private employers, regardless of whether they have union-represented employees.

Although the Board's general counsel said in a letter accompanying the guidance memorandum that he believes “most employers do not draft their employee handbooks with the object of prohibiting or restricting conduct protected by the [Act],” the guidance memorandum is troubling because it finds that many seemingly innocuous, sensible employer handbook provisions and policies are unlawful because they could potentially be interpreted to restrict employees' rights to engage in activities protected under the Act.

While the guidance memorandum has no independent legal authority, it does signal to all employers (union and non-union) those areas that the general counsel's office will investigate in pursuing unfair labor practice charges. As we have seen over the last couple of years, the Board has become much more aggressive in pursuing charges against non-union companies for policy violations, and this guidance memorandum helps clarify the general counsel's position.

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