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.

Featured on Employment Law This Week: General Counsel Peter Robb has issued a memo to National Labor Relations Board regional directors that offers guidance in applying the Board’s Boeing decision when considering the legality of rules.

Robb instructs the regional offices to refer cases when there is uncertainty to the Board’s Division of Advice for direction. The General Counsel memo that was issued at the beginning of June provides very specific guidance regarding the placement of work rules into each of the three categories. The memo summarizes each of the three ...