Featured Articles

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which has jurisdiction over the state of Washington) recently overturned a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board which had allowed a hospital to prohibit nurses from wearing union buttons "in any areas . . . where they may encounter patients or family members." In doing so, the Court undermined the presumption in favor of such employer bans absent substantial evidence that union buttons offend clients. Read the full article.

In an earlier Williams Kastner Alert, published last February, this author discussed the Register Guard decision which upheld discipline of employees who used company e-mail to solicit support for a union. That was a very significant decision since the union had argued that employees should have an absolute right to communicate using company equipment. The National Labor Relations Board disagreed and determined that employees did not have an absolute right to use e-mail to solicit union support and that the employer's uniform ban on any group solicitation (whether related to a union campaign or not) had not been discriminatorily applied. The decision has led to a flurry of copy-cat cases before the Board and the more recent Board analysis provides some clarification in this area. Read the full article.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently upheld an arbitrator's ruling that Aramark Facility Services wrongfully terminated 33 janitors for failing to correct Social Security discrepancies contained in a no-match letter within 3 working days. In the case of Aramark Facility Services vs. SEIU Local 1877, the issue before the Court was whether a no-match letter from the Social Security Administration puts an employer "on constructive notice that it was employing undocumented workers" in violation of immigration laws. Employers across the country routinely encounter this issue, and with the recent high-profile and volatile immigration raids on businesses across the country, employers find themselves between a rock and a hard place in responding to no-match letters from the SSA while still remaining in compliance with immigration laws since the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) subjects employers to civil and criminal liability if they employ undocumented workers "knowing" of their undocumented status. Read the full article.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a controversial decision recently regarding a public employer's right to monitor employee use of employer-issued communication devices for personal use. It also provided a strong message to the providers of electronic communication services regarding their potential liability under the Stored Communications Act for providing the text of communications to employers without employee permission. In Quon v. Arch Wireless Operating Company, the Court determined that the city of Ontario, California, violated the constitutional rights of a police sergeant by reviewing text messages sent and received by him on a police department-issued pager and that the Arch Wireless Operating Company violated the federal Stored Communications Act by providing the city with transcripts of the employeee's text messages. The case is an excellent illustration of how a broad employer policy proscribing personal use of company-issued communication devices can be completely undercut if not uniformly applied. Read the full article.

In response to employer uncertainty about disciplining or even discharging employees participating in nationwide and local demonstrations such as the recent May Day rallies in opposition to immigration reform, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board recently issued a Guidance Memorandum. The guidance provided in the Memorandum may prove helpful to employers -- both union and non-union -- especially as the current political season heats up and the potential for employee activity at the worksite, or, more importantly, away from the site when the employee is supposed to be working, increases. Read the full article.

SEATTLE
Two Union Square ~ 601 Union Street, Suite 4100 ~ Seattle, WA 98101

TACOMA
1301 A Street, Suite 900 ~ Tacoma, WA 98402

PORTLAND
888 SW Fifth Avenue, Suite 600 ~ Portland, OR 97204

www.williamskastner.com

Notice

Click to unsubscribe from the Labor & Employment Advisor.