You Can’t Require Positivity

Question

Apparently it’s unlawful to ask employees to maintain a positive workplace. At least, that’s the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) view of it.

The NLRB board threw out a provision in T-Mobile’s employee handbook that required workers “to maintain a positive work environment by communicating in a manner that is conducive to effective working relationships.”

According to the ruling, forcing workers to be positive all the time infringes on their rights to organize, protected by Section 7 of the NLRA. And employers cannot prevent workers from organizing.

Just a week later, the NLRB shot down another company’s employee handbook that prohibits employees from engaging in conduct that’s offensive to other employees. According to the NLRB, the rule “is not accompanied by any other descriptive language that would help employees interpret what types of ‘offensive’ conduct the rule is targeting.”

So what can be learned? “Avoid the temptation to draft broad statements and instead draft provisions under the purview of whether an employee would reasonably construe the provision … limits their Section 7 rights,” attorneys Thomas Chibnail and John Hasman write in National Law Review.

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