The legal landscape around workplace policies has taken a significant turn as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ushers in a new standard for evaluating their legality. Eschewing its 2017 Boeing ruling, which had eased the scrutiny on such policies, the NLRB’s new ruling, known as the Stericycle decision, imposes a stricter test.
Under the recent Stericycle ruling, a workplace policy is deemed to violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) if it, even tacitly, discourages employees from participating in organizing activities.
The Stericycle decision represents a departure from the less restrictive Boeing standard, which evaluated workplace policies based on whether they had a mere ‘potential’ to discourage employee’s Section 7 rights, to a new ‘reasonable tendency’ test.
Such a shift could have profound implications for corporations and law firms, as they will now need to calibrate their workplace policies to this newfound scrutiny.
As a result, it’s essential for legal professionals to become thoroughly briefed on the Stericycle decision, to ensure they can proactively guide their organizations toward complying with these evolving NLRB standards.
The presence of possible fallout from non-compliance under the Stericycle ruling underscores the importance for legal experts in the corporate world to maintain an active eye on changes in labor relations law, and to remain poised to adapt swiftly to shifts in regulatory horizons.