The NLRB's Acting General Counsel has finally recognized
that employees do not read every employer policy through a Section
7 lens. In a Memorandum from the General Counsel's
Division of Advice dated February 28, 2013, the Acting GC found
that Boeing Company did not interfere with or restrain Section 7
activity by maintaining an ethics policy Code of Conduct which
prohibits employees from questioning the company's honesty,
morality or reputation. Instead, the Memorandum concludes
that reasonable employees would understand that the company's
Ethical Guidelines are aimed at matters of business ethics, not
protected concerted activity.
While recent Board decisions give lip service to the
requirements that phrases not be read in isolation, and that
policies are unlawful only if employees "would reasonably
construe" them as prohibiting Section 7 activity, all too
often the opinions read as if the analysis was simply an academic
exercise for labor lawyers to decide if
