Workforce Bulletin

Once again seemingly appropriate work rules have been under attack by the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”). In a recent decision (Component Bar Products, Inc. and James R. Stout, Case 14-CA-145064), two members of a three-member NLRB panel upheld an August 7, 2015 decision by an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) finding that an employer violated the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA” or the “Act”) by maintaining overly broad handbook rules and terminating an employee who was engaged in “protected, concerted activity” when he called another ...

In its May 28th, 2015 decision in Rhinehimer v. U.S. Bancorp Investments, Inc. (pdf), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an employee who reports alleged unlawful conduct has engaged in protected activity for the purposes of a retaliation claim under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”), 18 U.S.C. § 1514A, as long as he or she has an objectively reasonable belief that the activity reported is prohibited under SOX.  The Sixth Circuit has joined the Second and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal in rejecting the previously adopted standard that an employee’s conduct must ...

by Steven M. Swirsky and Michael F. McGahan

On Thursday, August 18, 2011, the Acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB" or "Board") issued a report on the outcome of 14 cases involving employees' use of social media or social media policies in general. This report follows a more expansive "Survey of Social Media Issues Before the NLRB" issued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on August 5, 2011, which addresses 129 cases involving social media reviewed by the NLRB at some level. Further, after these reports were published, an NLRB administrative law judge ("ALJ ...

By: Allen B. Roberts, Stuart M. Gerson and Daniel J. Schuch

In a case packed with allegations of the kind rarely found beyond the script of a soap opera, the U.S. Department of Labor ("DOL") Administrative Review Board ("ARB") determined that protected activity under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 ("SOX") does not require a showing of fraud against shareholders. Rather, per the ARB, it is sufficient that an employee reasonably believes conventional mail or wire fraud has occurred. The holding in Brown v. Lockheed Martin Corp. (pdf) evidences the ARB's adherence to a literal, and clinical, construction of SOX – and serves as a clear indication of the ARB's willingness to reach beyond the underlying objectives envisioned by Congress in the wake of the infamous collapse of Enron and WorldCom. If upheld and followed, Brown effectively expands SOX whistleblower protections well beyond the intended beneficiary of the law – the "innocent investor."