{"id":611,"date":"2019-10-02T09:48:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T14:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/?p=611"},"modified":"2019-10-02T09:48:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T14:48:49","slug":"nlrb-issues-advice-memorandum-regarding-employer-social-media-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/nlrb-issues-advice-memorandum-regarding-employer-social-media-policies","title":{"rendered":"NLRB ISSUES ADVICE MEMORANDUM REGARDING EMPLOYER SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By: Jonathan T. Swain &amp; Christopher\nJ. Saugstad<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>September 27, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The National Labor Relations Board (\u201cNLRB\u201d) recently made\npublic an Advice Memorandum (the \u201cMemorandum\u201d) by its General Counsel on August\n15, 2019. The Advice Memorandum detailed the General Counsel\u2019s advice regarding\nspecific social media policies of CVS Health. The Memorandum examined numerous\nsocial media policies of CVS Health and found most to be lawful except two\nspecific policies related to the disclosure of personal information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Memorandum utilized the new balancing test established in\n<em>Boeing Co.,<\/em> 365 NLRB No. 154, which evaluates \u201c(i) the nature and extent\nof the potential impact of Section 7 rights, and (ii) legitimate business\njustifications associated with the requirements(s).\u201d Additionally, the\nMemorandum explained how the new balancing test creates three categories in\nwhich to classify various types of employer rules. The three categories are\nbroken down into:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Category\n1: lawful rules that either don&#8217;t interfere with NLRA-protected rights or for\nwhich the possibly adverse impact on protected rights is outweighed by the\nemployer&#8217;s legitimate business justifications;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Category\n2: rules which warrant individualized scrutiny on a case-by-case basis as to\nwhether they would interfere with NLRA rights, and if so, whether the adverse\nimpact on the protected conduct is outweighed by the legitimate business\njustifications; and <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Category\n3: unlawful rules which prohibit or limit NLRA-protected conduct and for which\nthe adverse impact on workers&#8217; rights is not outweighed by the employer&#8217;s legitimate\nbusiness justification.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, the General Counsel found two CVS Health policies that\nran afoul of Section 7 rights under the new balancing test. First, CVS Health\nadopted a policy in which employees were required to identify themselves by\nname if they mentioned CVS Health or discussed their work on social media. The\nMemorandum classified this rule under Category 2, found it unlawful, and\nexplained &#8220;[t]he Board has recognized that requiring employees to\nself-identify in order to participate in collective action would impose a\nsignificant burden on Section 7 rights.&#8221; The Memorandum explained CVS\nHealth had other policies in place to ensure employee\u2019s social media posts were\nnot being made upon CVS Health\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The General Counsel deemed another policy unlawful in\nrelation to personal information. CVS Health\u2019s Handbook and Social Media Policy\ncontained a restriction that prohibited employees from disclosing\n&#8220;employee information&#8221; on social media. This policy was also\nclassified by the NLRB as a Category 2 policy and was found by the NLRB as\nrestricting employees\u2019 ability to engage in Section 7 activities. &#8220;While\nthe employer has a legitimate business interest in keeping customers&#8217; and\nemployees&#8217; personal and medical information confidential, it has no legitimate\ninterest in preventing employees from sharing contact information or discussing\nwages, working conditions or employment disputes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nMemorandum advised bringing a complaint against CVS regarding the two policies\nfound to be unlawful under the newly established standing in <em>Boeing Co. <\/em>Due\nto the decision in <em>Boeing Co.,<\/em> along with the recently published Advice\nMemorandum, employers will want to review their current handbook and social\nmedia policies. Policies requiring employee identification by real name when\ndiscussing their employer or their work, or policies prohibiting employees from\ndisclosing \u201cemployee information\u201d on social media may be deemed unlawful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lindner &amp; Marsack, S.C. represents employers in all areas\nof labor and employment law. If you have any questions about effective workplace\nhandbook and social media policies, or any other labor or employment issue\ninvolving your business, please contact us at any time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Jonathan T. Swain &amp; Christopher J. Saugstad September 27, 2019 The National Labor Relations Board (\u201cNLRB\u201d) recently made public an Advice Memorandum (the \u201cMemorandum\u201d) by its General Counsel on August 15, 2019. The Advice Memorandum detailed the General Counsel\u2019s advice regarding specific social media policies of CVS Health. The Memorandum examined numerous social media [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nlrb","category-social-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5WrIF-9R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindner-marsack.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}