ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 28
COUNSEL COMPOUND
Update Your Employee
Handbook in 2019
By Jeff Leiter
M
ost employees view their
employee handbooks as a list
of rules they need to follow,
while employers see their employee
handbooks as setting forth their
expectations from workers and what
they should expect from the company.
What is clear is that employee handbooks are living documents, so it makes
sense that employers regularly review
them and adjust to ever-evolving laws,
regulations and court decisions.
For example, last June, the National
Labor Relations Board's (NLRB)
general counsel wrote to the Agency's
regional directors on how to evaluate workplace rules and employee
handbooks in both union and nonunion, private-employer workplaces
in light of the Board's 2017 decision
in The Boeing Company. In Boeing, the
NLRB replaced its 2004 "reasonably
construe" standard - which made
employee handbook provisions unlawful if they "could" be interpreted as
interfering with employee rights protected under Section 7 of the National
Labor Relations Act (NLRA) - with
a new balancing test to evaluate
employer rules, policies and handbook
provisions under the NLRA.
As part of the NLRB's new balancing standard, it also announced three
categories of work rules to provide
clarity to employers, employees and
unions - Rules That Are Lawful to
Maintain, Rules Warranting Individualized Scrutiny, and Rules That Are
Unlawful to Maintain. The guidance
sent out last June by the NLRB general counsel was to help place various
types of workplace rules into these
three categories.
28
JANUARY 2019
| COMPOUNDINGS | ILMA.ORG
While wide-ranging in scope, the
NLRB general counsel's guidance does
leave some holes that need to be filled
over time, such as how the Board will
categorize certain workplace rules
prohibiting harassment, employee participation in workplace investigations,
confidential arbitration proceedings
and restricting access to the employer's
email system for non-business uses. As
a result, I am leery of over-reliance on
the NLRB general counsel's guidance.
However, because the guidance
from the NLRB general counsel says
that "ambiguities in [workplace] rules
are no longer interpreted against the
drafter, and generalized provisions
should not be interpreted as banning
all activity that could conceivably
be included," it does make sense for
employers to review and reconsider
their employee handbook policies
on topics including civility among
workers, photography/recording in the
http://www.ILMA.ORG
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ILMA Compoundings – January 2019
Letter From the Ceo
Inside Ilma
What’s Coming Up
Industry Rundown
In the Know
International Insight
Market Report
Business Hub
Counsel Compound
In Network
Member Connections
Portrait
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Cover1
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Cover2
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 1
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 2
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Letter From the Ceo
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Inside Ilma
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 5
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 6
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 7
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - What’s Coming Up
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 9
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Industry Rundown
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - In the Know
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - International Insight
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 13
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Market Report
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 15
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 16
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 17
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 18
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 19
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 20
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 21
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 22
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 23
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 24
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 25
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Business Hub
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 27
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Counsel Compound
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 29
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Member Connections
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - 31
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Portrait
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Cover3
ILMA Compoundings – January 2019 - Cover4
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