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NRLB Redefines 'Your Own Time'
Doc Ruby writes "The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled to ban off-duty worker 'fraternization,' at the employer's discretion. So getting together for a beer after work can now be prohibited by the boss. With IT workers so commonly producing some of our best work 'after hours,' even at home or in restaurants/bars, will this ruling come back to bite employers in the IT industry? Can they really stop you from talking with your cubicle neighbor on the bus home, if they can't even stop you from reading Slashdot while on the clock?"
While I completely agree that this could be made out to imply that workers are not permitted to assemble outside of work hours to collectively unite against their employer, I'm far more disturbed by the quote at the end of the article that reads, "America's workers need more opportunities to come together to discuss vexing workplace issues, or just to make personal connections with those we spend most of our waking hours with."
What American workers need to do is not allow their personal lives to intermingle with their daily work grind. Yes, plenty of people are required to do that and some employees even thrive on it, yet it is negatively impacting our mental, physical, and family health. Why are we allowing our employers to control more and more of our lives by requiring more than 40 hours a week w/o proper compensation and *requiring* us not to have outside of work relationships with any co-workers? While *I* refuse to have any out of work relationships with any of my co-workers I don't believe that employers should have the right to mandate and legally enforce that behavior.
I do everything I can to not even mention work to friends and family. When I am outside the office walls my brain is on everything but. It's healthy to have time to yourself, your family, and your hobbies.
Please, if you believe that you can successfully collectively bargain against your employer, do so to the best of your ability, but remember that work is just something you should do for 40 hours a week - anything over that should be properly compensated and documented hourly. Try and separate your family/personal life from it as best you can. For most of you the results will be more rewarding than your paycheck.
Your mind and your personal life outside of work are your own. Don't let your paycheck fool you into thinking otherwise.
My wife and I are employed at the same company... Does that mean I don't have to talk to her anymore afterwork? Thank you NLRB!!! I'm soooo shot-gunning two beers tonight and watching ESPN.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
So wait, they are going to ban my drinking! What next, no more vodka shots during breaks? Then what, they are going to replace the coke and rum dispenser with WATER!? THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!
Oh wait, what was TFA about again?
Interesting that the dissenting board member was the one appointed by Clinton. The others were appointed by the current president.
I really don't think too many employers will take the time and trouble to regulate friendships outside the office, or even inside in most cases. Most managers want to get stuff done and call it a day, not snoop around area restaurants and bars to keep tabs on employee social lives.
With the exception of substance abuse or crime..
If a company wants to tell me what I can and can't do with my free time, then I will be billing them for my free time. Since my free time is worth a lot to me, I will be expecting a raise. $20 an hour 24/7 will be just fine.
Otherwise, I reserve the right to date, have sex with, go out with, hang out with, etc, with any of my co-workers when we are off the clock.
This falls under 'human rights'. Which you cannot sign away.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
...since the submission is extremely misleading and melodramatic, as usual.
NLRB ruling
The ruling does not universally allow employers to ban any and all off-duty interaction. It made a specific ruling, in its capacity of administering the National Labor Relations Act, that Guardsmark's ban on in-uniform, but off duty, fraternization ("dating or becoming overly friendly with") with clients and coworkers. The critical and key aspect of the ruling was that it allowed for the prevention of such inappropriate fraternization while in Guardsmark uniform. The NLRB ruling further stated that care must be taken such that this ruling is not misapplied as to have a "chilling" effect on employee's rights under Section 7 of the the Act.
The actual order is:
ORDER
The Respondent, Guardsmark, LLC, its officers, agents, suc-cessors, and assigns, shall
1. Cease and desist from
(a) Maintaining or enforcing a handbook provision prohibit-ing employees from registering complaints regarding their wages, hours, or conditions of employment with Guardsmarks' clients.
(b) In any like or related manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed them by Section 7 of the Act.
2. Take the following affirmative action which is necessary to effectuate the purposes of the Act.
(a) Within 21 days after receipt of this decision advise its employees, nationwide, that the handbook provision regarding registering complaints with clients is not to be understood as limiting the right of employees to engage in activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
(b) At a time when the employee handbook is to be revised or reissued, either delete the handbook provision prohibiting employees from registering complaints with clients, or modify the said language so that it does not prohibit activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act.
(c) Within 14 days after service by the Region, post at its San Francisco, California office copies of the attached notice marked "Appendix."6 Copies of the notice, on forms provided by the Regional Director for Region 20, after being duly signed by Respondent's representative, shall be posted immediately upon receipt thereof, and shall remain posted by Respondent for 60 consecutive days thereafter, in conspicuous places, in-cluding all places where notices to employees are customarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the Respondent to ensure that the notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
(d) Within 21 days after service by the Regional Office, file with the Regional Director for Region 20 a sworn certification of a responsible official on a form provided by the Region at-testing to the steps that the Respondent has taken to comply.
This can work both ways. If your employer controls your time outside of work, injuries outside of work may become work related. I made this argument, that since my computer work at home was subject to their possession (standard inventions/non-disclosure agreement said it is their unless they didn't want it). Then my tendinitis, even off duty, was compensatible under workers comp.
BTW. I believe in California, an employer cannot punish you for legal off duty conduct.
Fight Spammers!
Because this ruling was very specific and in a single case, and only applied to dating or fraternization off-duty with clients or coworkers while in their work uniforms.
I find it sickening.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
first, how isn't this a violation of the first amendment garantee of freedom of assembly?
second, it's not unheard of. i was subject to a similar ban when i taught in japan. that ban was a little different, it prohibited fraternizing with students, but a similar idea. interestingly, a japanese court ruled that it wasn't legal, because employers couldn't regulate what employees do when they are off the clock
Freedom of association isn't a civil rights issue?
Why do you call the U.S.A the "land of the free"?
:o)
They mean free as in beer, not free as in freedom.
but this is a little excessive. I can understand that employers don't want to hire people they know are doing illegal things outside of work (see drug testing), but outside of that, if they aren't paying me for that time, I'll do what I want. I am actually having a little trouble figuring out how this is legal. Company policies that prevent two relatives from working in the same place, etc I can understand, and if two people in the workplace get married, then one has to go. But to tell them they can't date/get married/drink/etc is out of control. If the government can't regulate what I do with my time, what makes an employer think they can?
Also, companies that push this will feel the pinch, because any employee worth his salt will find somewhere else to work. That will only leave the bad employer with bad employees, and that is a recipe for disaster. The only other option I see for them is to raise their wages so high that people are willing to put up with it, but then they raise their operating cost and allow their competitors to undercut them.
Google cache, since article is already going slow:: www.americanrightsatwork.org/workersrights/eye7_20 05.cfm+&hl=en
:) )
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:mO-w2Me3Sy4J
This sounds like a very disturbing ruling. IANAL, so I'm not sure how any of this will stand to to serious scrutiny, but would this give employers the power to "ban" employee unions it doesn't like? And yet workers have the right to associate (at least I believe they do, its been a while since I researched workers rights at all, correct me if I'm wrong
More importantly, what useful purpose could this serve, and how would you enforce it? Without following your workers around 24/7, this ruling is nearly unenforcable.
This whole think reeks of silliness.
Far as I understand, the NLRB is for relations between labor management (Unions) and companies. This rulling is directed at union solictiation/events after work and in company uniform.
There are well defined procedures for starting a pro-union vote. Strict rules, and lots of foul play. This group is around to rule which side screwed up that delicate dance.
This has no affect on individual employees after ours and out of uniform. Unless they are having drinks at a bar with the local union rep and their entire department. Then god knows the rules and laws that have to be followed.
The concern (towards both parties) is bribes and kickbacks to a select group of workers to get or not get in place a union.
Move along people, nothing to see here. Nothing 'chilling' about this. No slope, and nothing slippery about it.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
With IT workers so commonly producing some of our best work 'after hours'...
Please don't read this as a flame, but what the hell is meant by this? Maybe its because I don't buy into this work-till-you-drop mentality that so many people in capitalist economies seem to have, but why on earth is this being used as a rationalisation for maintaining outside-office freedom of assembly?
This reads as akin to "How dare they stop us meeting outside work! Don't they know that we do more work for them when we meet?", and is from my viewpoint pretty disgusting.
What about "How dare they stop us meeting outside work! Its none of their god damn business what we do outside of the time that we are payed by them!"
Why the seeming sycophancy? Are people so brainwashed by capitalism that they think they have a moral duty to comply with their employers, and no right to stand up and say "Hey, go screw yourself. My personal time is mine and mine alone"? That's all the "rationalisation" that should be required!
Still, just wearing a work uniform should not be a pretext for an employer to control his/her employees' behavior. If they employer does not like what his/her employees do in their uniforms, they have to right to take the uniforms away (i.e. require that they are stored on sight) or to fire the employees. Employers should not have any control over their employees' behavior off the clock.
Unenforced laws are the most dangerous sort. The thing is, then they are commonly broken and can be selectively enforced to punish anyone.
Workers in IT (esp. programmers) spend long and irregular hours, socialize with eachother, and exchange ideas. That's just the culture of it. I somehow doubt that the employers who pushed for this decision are specifically thinking about their IT staff. "These are not the droids they are looking for" basically.
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It seems to me that if any employer (especially if federal) actually tries to enforce this ruling--provided the victims are competent--there will be a court battle. In my unexpert opinion, this clearly impinges upon our constitutionally protected right to free speech. Plus, unless our government deems us property of those we work for (I'm not saying it doesn't), there's just too much gray area to enforce this.
"I'm a philosophy major. That means I can think deep thoughts about being unemployed." -- Bruce Lee
1 point Hysterical*
/., would this be a '+' or '-' rating?
* for dispensing with a pedestrian "summary" of the facts in TFA in favor of hyperboic and hysterical misreading according to one's own personal filters, or as an attempt to induce such hysterics in others.
The only question, for
-Styopa
The company, then, has a somewhat reasonable explanation for the need to restrict fraternization - it is a potential security lapse, which would result in a significant loss of reputation for their company.
In this limited role, I cannot help but agree. Especially since the NLRB rules only on the basis of interference with union-organizing activities. As I read the NLRB decision, this wasn't a review for Constitutionality -- only to determine if the rule was designed to curtail or prevent union activity at the company.
I don't really see this being a big problem. I am assuming, of course, that your employer pays you for all 24 hours in the day, of course. Let's see, where I live, the government mandates overtime at time-and-a-half past eight hours in a day. Or double-time past twelve hours in a day. That works out to 6.65 times my base pay. So yes, I'd happily not socialise with my coworkers, provided I get AT LEAST a 565% raise. Heck, I'll even carry a pager for that.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Why dampen sensationalism with the facts? :)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
[Emphasis added by previous poster]
In other words, naked fraternization or dating of clients and co-workers is now officially sanctioned!
3) Where is the ACLU to challenge this?
They are busy suing a 7 year old kid for saying, "One nation under God," when the kid next to him didn't want to hear it and having a 70 year old store owner in Alabama arrested for having a printoff of the 10 commandments hanging up behind the register. They need to take care of that important stuff first before looking at little things like this.
Knightfall
Should have known it was bogus, the ruling as hyped by that crappy little website would have been SO controversial that we would have all been seeing wall to wall coverage on every news net on every part of the political spectrum from NPR to FoxNews. Good to know this is just hysterical Democrats doing thier fundraising thing.
But folks, it wouldn't be the first time an employer has pulled a stunt like this, making demands of your off time, and there are even some cases I could envision where it would be justified. Off the top of my head would be a lot of highly classified work splits things up so that no worker bee sees the whole picture. Often they don't even know what the end product will even resemble. They often have rules in place to keep it that way.
But the proper response when an employer does something stupid isn't to go running for the Nanny State to some in and make that bad ol boss play nice. Are we not Free Men, the inheritors of the blessings of liberty bought at such horrific prices of blood and treasure by our mighty forefathers? Are their descendants such pussies that they can't handle such an easy problem themselves? Nay, the correct response would be for a dozen or so key employees to have banded together and marked riht into that pointy haired boss (probably in terror of liability from the sexual harrassment nazies) and made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Demand he front the money to start a company softball team. In one swoop you accomplish several things:
1. His PHB manual says he has to agree so you win.
2. Putting his name on the purchase approval form pretty much voids his "no after work association rule" in writing.
3. Makes him may a token but real monatary penalty.
And if the employyes are such sheep they won't stand up for themselves then I judge that as sheep it is the boss's duty to shear their pathetic asses.
Democrat delenda est
if you don't have any cases to point to, then don't put up complete BS about this stuff. The ACLU is also spending its time protecting bible beating christians in Las Vegas to keep there rights to demonstrate infront of the casinos. And that is a real case they defended and won(on CNN about 6 months back).
With one exception...if you decide to wear my company uniform off the clock, you had better be on your best behavior. If you get in a fight with someone, throw a drink at a client (even though you didn't know it was a client), go make comments on the news then yes I have a right to get upset with you and fire you. Take the uniform off and then do whatever you please.
That is acceptable. I do not believe that it is acceptable for an employer to tell me who I can or cannot hang out with. I do agree that a boss should NOT date/see/sleep with/marry a subordinate. This has proven time and time again to be bad news for EVERYONE.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Dammit their goes my dream of working at a strip club so i can have sex with the dancers after hours. Have to tell them to keep their clothes on so we don't get fired.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
No, 2005-1984 = 10. You do see that, don't you, citizen? How many fingers am I holding up?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
FYFL-
The judge also concluded that the Respondent did not violate the Act by maintaining a work rule that directs employees not to "fraternize on duty or off duty, date[,] or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees." The judge reasoned that such a rule "does not on its face, or by reasonable implication, pre-clude activities protected by the Act." The General Counsel excepts, arguing that employees reasonably would understand the rule to prohibit activity protected by Section 7.
We find no merit to this exception. The Respondent's rule is somewhat similar to a work rule we reviewed in Lafayette Park Hotel, supra, and found lawful. There, the employer's rule mandated that "[e]mployees are not allowed to fraternize with hotel guests anywhere on hotel property." 326 NLRB at 825. We concluded that the rule was lawful because employees would not reasonably read "this rule as prohibiting protected employee com-munications . . . about terms and conditions of employ-ment." Id. at 827. Although the Respondent's rule is not identical to the one in Lafayette Park Hotel, we find that any differences between the rules are not material and do not warrant a different outcome here. Contrary to our dissenting colleague, we do not believe that the Respondent's rule would reasonably tend to chill protected employee activity. The Respondent's proscrip-tion against fraternization appears alongside proscrip-tions on "dat[ing,] or becom[ing] overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees." That being so, we believe that employees would reasonably under-stand the rule to prohibit only personal entanglements, rather than activity protected by the Act. In our view, it would be an unreasonable stretch for an employee to infer that speaking to others about terms and conditions of employment is a "fraternization" that is condemned by the rule. As in Lutheran Heritage Village, our dissenting colleague continues to advocate finding a violation where an employee could possibly perceive a conflict between a rule and protected activity. We, instead, limit the Board's reach to rules, unlike this one, where an em-ployee would reasonably perceive such a conflict.
We recognize that the rule in Lafayette Park Hotel prohibited fraternization with guests, while the rule here prohibits fraternization with client employees or coem-ployees. However, in context, the rule here is reasonably understood as prohibiting personal entanglements, rather than activity protected by the Act. Moreover, as the judge noted and our dissenting col-league ignores, the Respondent's rule is designed "to provide safeguards so that security will not be compro-mised by interpersonal relationships either between Re-spondent's fellow security guards or between Respon-dent's security guards and clients' employees." Given those heightened security concerns, we think the Re-spondent's justification for its fraternization rule is even stronger than that of the employer in Lafayette Park Ho-tel, where we concluded that a fraternization rule was a proper means for preventing the "appearance of favorit-ism, claims of sexual harassment, and employee dissen-sion created by romantic relationships in the workplace." 326 NLRB at 827 fn.
The thing about the ACLU is that they don't ask who you voted for, what your religion is, or what color your skin is before they work to protect your rights.
Does it surprise you that a majority of ACLU members are religious? Most of them are Christians, with many Jews and Muslims and other religions.
The problem is that they don't waste their energy fighting off people who try to define them as something they are not. They let their own actions define who they are. Which is evidenced by their repeated defenses of the civil liberties of all members of society.
Maybe you should visit the ACLU's website for yourself and learn about them from THEM instead of Limbaugh.
What?
Since there is no law protecting the right of workers to socialize outside of work, the court allowed the rule that they couldn't to stand. There is a law, thanks to union lobbying, saying workers can meet outside of work to discuss unions or union business - so this is the ONLY reason workers are allowed to meet each other outside of work. As far as uniforms, the court further put the restriction that workers can not wear their work uniforms at these meetings.
People are trying to spread disinformation and FUD about this. If it was a ruling only applying to some little rule about uniforms or some obscure union regulation, it would not be a big deal. Anyone who reads the ruling can see what it says.
I hate the current corporate attitude that management should have the right to interfere in human relations in the work place. Who the fuck do they think they are?
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
How many fingers am I holding up?
Not only can I tell you how many, I can tell you wich one.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Since the parent is highly moderated and will be seen, I'll respond here, duplicating one of my other responses:
The ORDER of this ruling, which is the only substantive piece of the ruling, relates to in-uniform provisions. The NLRB took NO ACTION with regard to the fraternization decision, already made by a judge, noting simply that such provisions are not prohibited and that precedence exists for employers to maintain anti-fratnernization laws. In other words, the only positive, definable action taken by the NLRB was with regard to in-uniform rules, as can be seen in the order, and simply held the status quo, albeit with comment, with regard to allowed anti-fraternization rules.
In other words, a labor website picked this up, twisted it to mean something that it didn't by taking it WAYYYY overboard, then someone posted it to slashdot, no doubt awaiting the inevitable accusations of a conservative Republican corporatist conspiracy. The fact of the matter is that employers can maintain regulations, and can indeed terminate you if you do not adhere to them, period. The NLRB made NO AFFIRMATIVE DECISION in that regard, simply commenting that it jived with previous precedent (with a dissenting member), and did not reverse a judge's preexisting ruling. Section 7 provisions must be protected, and if you and others want to interpret this as an affront to Section 7, fine, but frankly, I'm in the philosophical camp that employers must be able to release employees for any reason (excluding reasons prohibited by e.g., protected classes, and so on), so we'll likely not agree here. Being employed at a particular place, or indeed being employed at all, is not a right.
You are wrong. Most people are unsuitable as friends or anything else.
It's always interesting when we make broad comments--the natural tendency is always to place ourselves into the majority, even if it's unconciously.
I'm a leading-class introvert. My wife has trouble understanding me, and she's spent a mind-boggling ammount of time trying. I drink only very rarey, I don't watch sports, and I don't go to church--
but I make a good friend, because I take people as they come and present myself as I am. Some of my friends are as introverted as I am, but most of them are like most people--extroverts who like to hang out in groups.
You are placing FAR too much burden on other people. Introverts can get along just fine with extroverts--you just need to change "despise extroverts" to "aren't an extrovert", and let the social chips fall where they may.
First that's NLRB, not NRLB. Consult the National Council to Combat Dyslexia in Abreviations, (NDCAC).
I read this from the NLRB's web site. The ruling only states that you can't fraternize with others while you are on duty whether they are off duty or not.
Seems overly controlling to me, but within the employer's rights. Two off-duty employees would still be able to communicate, organize, etc.
This administration seems to be trying to erode the rights of workers but if we're going to make accusations against them, we need to have the facts on our side. Exaggerating our case makes it easier for them not to be held accountable by the American people.
President Bush did not clean house at the NLRB when he came into office, so if you want to blame someone, look into the judges behind this, and the cuplrit who appointed them. Who knows, it could be good ol' Slick Willy behind it all, or worse, Prez. Carter! More than likely, it was someone appointed by someone appointed by someone who was voted in by someone you voted in years and years ago.
I think it is extremely interesting how people are responding to this story in these threads. People have their own prepared agendas, preconceived notions, which determine how they're responding - some are entirely determined, others are just influenced.
This ruling is extremely obvious in its effect: employers can tell employees with whom they can associate, even after hours. You'd think that every responder who's an employee (probably nearly 100%) would be outraged that employers even tried such a power grab over them. Or that they were supported by politicians. Especially that it's now law, especially under the administration of the NLRB (if the responders understood that the NLRB is a government agency designed to enforce workers and employer's rights). But only a few people can see how simple and obvious is this fascist merger of corporate and state power, exclusively at the expense of the worker.
You're doing the kind of exhaustive, patient responses to even the most clueless reactionary that I often find myself doing. The truth has the power to overwhelm even outnumbering opponents armed only with ignorance and lies. Like a little candle in a big dark room. It isn't easy to be the candle, with all the dark sucking the light, but it certainly feels right. Glad we're not alone.
--
make install -not war