An overview of the compensability of preliminary and postliminary activities under Integrity Staffing Solutions Inc. v. Busk and an overview of relevant standards such as the notion that federal laws set the baseline for employee rights.
This article by TELG managing principal R. Scott Oswald and TELG principal & general counsel Nicholas Woodfield was published by Westlaw Journal Employment on January 21, 2015.
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An employer cannot bar workers with access to company email from using the “predominant” workplace communication tool for union organizing activities during nonworking time, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled. Purple Communications Inc. and Communications Workers of America, Nos. 21-CA-095151, 21-RC-091531 and 21-RC-091584, 2014 WL 6989135 (N.L.R.B. Dec. 11, 2014).
In order to protect workers’ rights to join and form labor organizations as guaranteed by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, companies must allow the use of email to organize and discuss workplace issues because email is so widespread, it is “effectively a new ‘natural gathering place" at work, the board said.
The NLRB’s 3-2 split decision said an employer must show “special circumstances” that make email restrictions “necessary to maintain production and discipline.”
