Vigilant Blog

Many observers were quite surprised by the recent decision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s regional office in Chicago which allowed scholarship football players at Northwestern University to form a union. Interestingly, the ruling only applies to the 85 scholarship players on the team within the proposed bargaining unit and excludes the 37 non-scholarship…

Employer policies are still under fire by the Office of General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This time, the General Counsel issued an Advice Memorandum concluding that several of an employer’s policies were illegal, including those prohibiting the disclosure by employees of “confidential or non-public information” and prohibiting the use of the…

Imposing an across-the-board corporate policy requiring employees to keep investigations confidential violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), said the Office of General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board in a recent memorandum. Interestingly, the employer’s policy properly listed the four exceptions laid out in a previous Board decision, Banner Health System, dba Banner…

An employee’s expletive-laden expressions of contempt for her employer on a private Facebook forum with current and former coworkers wasn’t protected concerted activity, according to the National Labor Relations Board’s Office of the General Counsel. The employee didn’t try to encourage her coworkers to take any group action, and she wasn’t verbalizing mutual concerns over…

In this case a long term, union-represented employee bid on a job opening for which she was the senior bidder. The main issue was a restriction which prevented the employee from lifting 20 or more pounds, which was an essential function of this job. The company employed an occupational health nurse and an ergonomic technical…

A federal appeals court has invalidated a rule published by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in August 2011, which required all employers to post a notice informing employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Although the NLRB originally fast-tracked the requirement for employers to post the notice, the rule has…

The President didn’t have the power to appoint three people to the National Labor Relations Board on January 4, 2012, ruled the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The court’s ruling throws serious doubt on the validity of recent Board decisions, many of which have been highly controversial. The court determined that the…

Reports have surfaced recently that a National Labor Relations Board office in Phoenix has filed unfair labor practice charges against nonunion employers with overly broad “employment at will” language in their employee handbooks. The local Board office objected to statements that employees’ at-will status couldn’t be modified, or could only be modified if a senior…