As for email, the NLRB found that employees who are granted access to their employer’s email system may use it during their nonworking time to solicit on behalf of a union. Confidentiality rules that prohibit employees from talking about their wages or other personal or financial information to fellow employees and to unions are illegal.

 

Finally, the board found unlawful a company rule that stated that employees may not publicly criticize, ridicule, disparage or defame the company or its products.

These are just three of the types of policies commonly found in employee handbooks that the NLRB feels will reasonably tend to chill employees in the exercise of their rights under the law to organize a union or engage in protected concerted activity.

Read the full article by AGC Houston Employment Practices Committee member Frank Carrabba here.