Produce Firm’s Media, Confidentiality Policies Lawful: NLRB (1)

A California produce distributor didn’t violate federal labor law by prohibiting workers from speaking to the news media on behalf of the company or barring them from disclosing confidential information, a divided National Labor Relations Board ruled Oct. 10.

The 3-1 decision is the first from the NLRB applying its new legal test for workplace rules to an employer’s media contact policy or confidentiality rule. The Republican-controlled board created a more employer-friendly framework for assessing rules in its 2017 decision in Boeing.

The decision further fleshes out the NLRB’s doctrine for workplace rules under the Boeing standard, which analyzed ...