Questions about COVID-19 and our return to the workplace still remain unanswered for many employees. Cramer Law will ask some of these questions and provide answers according to current laws and regulations.
Please review this series of blogs posts designed to help employers and employees know what their rights are. Please contact us at Cramer Law if you feel your rights have been violated or if you need further information about any of these issues.
Reporting Unsafe Conditions Part II
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) prohibits employers from retaliating against an employee for participating in “concerted activities.” 29 U.S.C. § 158(a). In Maine Coast Regional Health Facilities, NLRB, 01-CA-209105, 01-CA-212276 (March 30, 2020), a recent National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) decision, a hospital employee submitted a letter of the editor of the local paper “discussing staffing shortages at the hospital and the impact on her and her coworkers’ working conditions, and expressing support for the [local] nurses’ union’s efforts to improve staffing levels.”
After letter appeared in the paper, the hospital fired the employee, citing a violation of its media policy as the reason for her termination. The hospital’s media policy stated “[n]o [hospital] employee may contact or release to news media information about [the hospital] . . . without the direct involvement of the [hospital] Community Relations Department.” The NLRB held that the employee was “discharged for engaging in protected concerted union activity in violation of Section 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3).”
