NLRB General Counsel Issues Handbook On Handbook Rules

Following up on the NLRB's decision in The Boeing Company, 365 NLRB No. 154 (Dec. 14, 2017), on June 6, NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb issued a new Guidance Memorandum (18-04) detailing how NLRB Regional Offices receiving claims of improper employment policies are to interpret employer workplace rules. As we reported this past December ( here), in Boeing, the Board established a new (and much more employer-friendly) standard for the lawfulness of employee work rules. As discussed in detail below, the Memo gives examples of specific policies that are to be found lawful and directs Regional Offices to no longer interpret ambiguous rules against the drafter or generalized provisions as banning all activity that could conceivably be included within the rule. Thus, Regional Offices will now look to whether a rule would be interpreted as prohibiting Section 7 activity, as opposed to whether it could conceivably be so interpreted.