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Does Your Employee Handbook Help or Hurt You?

By Robert G. Brody and Susan M. Westphal
January 31, 2016

A handbook that was once the foundation of good employment practices may now violate federal law, and nothing has changed except how the General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (the GC) interprets the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). While many of us think of the NLRA as the federal law that governs union related activities, it actually does much more; it protects the rights of all employees to act together regarding their wages, hours, and other working conditions (these are known as Section 7 rights).

Over the last few years, this has come to mean that this law protects employees' right to work together on almost any issue that involves their workplace. Such diverse issues as unionizing, wages, openly criticizing management, working on safety issues and much more are all examples of conduct the NLRA now protects. Given all these new rights your employees have, your handbook may now be a minefield of NLRA violations. Below are some of the major examples of dangers that may be hidden in your employee handbook. All of these examples are discussed in a Memorandum issued by the GC (the Memo). With the first quarter of the New Year upon us, there is no time like the present to ensure that your company handbook is complaint with the NLRA.

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