🧵Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers have a right to talk to each other about their wages and other working conditions. This can be a vital first step to acting with coworkers to make a workplace fairer—and to organize a union.
Workers also have a right under the NLRA to talk with those who may help them improve their working conditions; this includes labor unions, the NLRB and other government agencies, the media, and civil rights organizations.
Workplace rules that prohibit employees from talking to each other or third parties about wages or other working conditions seriously discourage employees’ rights to organize and are illegal under the NLRA.
Sometimes these work rules don’t directly say that employees can’t talk to one another or third parties about working conditions but are so confusing or so broadly written that workers may not do so out of fear of breaking a rule.
General Counsel Abruzzo believes that the Board should prohibit overly broad workplace rules that interfere with employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act, so that workers are fully protected.
The prior Board, in a case called Boeing, changed the law to allow employers to have broad rules that interfere with employees’ rights. The Board’s test stacked the deck against employees by making employers’ interests more important than workers’ rights under the NLRA.
Yesterday, GC Abruzzo filed a brief to the Board in a case called Stericycle arguing that the Board should overrule the Boeing test and find unlawful any workplace rule that a reasonable employee could read to interfere with their NLRA rights. https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45836d6881
The GC explains in her brief that when making that determination, the Board should look at all of the surrounding circumstances and not presume that employees fully understand their rights under the NLRA.
If an unfair labor practice charge is filed alleging that a workplace rule is unlawful because it interferes with employees’ rights under the NLRA, GC Abruzzo will consider whether to issue a complaint.
Workers can call 1-844-762-6572 for assistance filing a charge. A Spanish option is available and we may also be able to provide you with a language interpreter. Or you can contact your closest NLRB Field Office or submit a form on our website: https://nlrb.gov/guidance/fillable-forms