The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continues to relax restrictions on rules requiring confidentiality of ongoing workplace investigations. Securitas Security Services USA, 369 NLRB No. 57 (Apr. 14, 2020).
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects employees’ rights to discuss workplace issues. This protection includes employee discussion of discipline, discrimination, harassment, and…
Overruling Banner Estrella Medical Center, 362 NLRB 1108 (2015), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has held that investigative confidentiality rules are lawful Category 1 rules under The Boeing Company, 365 NLRB No. 154 (2017), where by their terms the rules apply for the duration of any investigation. Apogee Retail LLC d/b/a Unique Thrift…
An employer’s policies – one requiring confidentiality of workplace investigations and another requesting confidentiality – are unlawful under the NLRA, an NLRB Administrative Law Judge has held. The Boeing Company, No. 19–CA–089374 (July 26, 2013). ALJ Jeffrey Wedekind found both Boeing Company’s original policy and a revised policy on workplace investigations violated employees’ statutory…
Many employers maintain rules in their employee handbooks and/or personnel policies governing how investigations of possible employee misconduct will be handled. Such rules often include admonishments to employees about maintaining the confidentiality of the investigation and, therefore, they implicate Section 7 of the NLRA and protected concerted activity. Indeed, in Banner Health, 358 NLRB…
In a flurry of activity coinciding with the end of the term of National Labor Relations Board Member Brian Hayes (whose term ended on December 16), the NLRB has issued significant decisions relating to concerted activity conducted on social media, a newly unionized employer’s ability to discipline employees, and an employer’s obligation to continue dues…
In a case involving a health care employer, the NLRB has decided that employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted activity outweighed an employer’s interest in safeguarding internal investigations. Read about Banner Health Sys. d/b/a Banner Estrella Med. Ctr. on the Healthcare Workplace Update Blog.
