Media Coverage
Source: Reuters Legal
Media Coverage
06.07.13
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week reiterated prior decisions about employer confidentiality policies when a judge found rules about confidentiality in the American Red Cross employee handbook and code of conduct were unenforceable. The series of decisions made by the NLRB involves policies that could interfere with behavior that is protected in the workplace, such as the sharing of personnel information with other workers or people outside the workplace.
Employment counsel Julia Judish says the issue is that the wording of the policies is often too broad.
“The reason employers adopt these policies is that they’re trying to protect information from getting into the hands of competitors, but they’re written in such a way that the prohibition falls on employees who discuss that information with union representatives or potential union representatives,” she said.
Judish advises employers to write more narrow confidentiality clauses, phrasing them so as not to forbid protected conversations about wages, benefits and working conditions.