Management Memo

On August 2, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) announced a long-anticipated Decision that will affect how employers craft, apply and enforce workplace policies in almost all workplaces, regardless of whether employees are represented by a union. As we anticipated several years ago, the current Board, with a majority of members nominated by President Biden, has now rejected the agency’s 2017 decision in The Boeing Company, in which it adopted a balancing test to evaluate facially neutral employer rules and handbook provisions by examining the nature and extent of their potential impact on employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the “Act”) against legitimate justification(s) for the policies.

The majority opinion in Stericycle Inc. substantively revives the NLRB’s stance on workplace rules as established in the 2004 Lutheran Heritage decision.Under this new framework, any employer’s rule, policy, or handbook provision that  has a “reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their Section 7 rights” may be deemed to constitute an unfair labor practice and to be unlawful in violation of the NLRA.