For the past several years, the majority of employers have been aware of the increasing pro-union trend of the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB), the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s labor laws. However, a few recent decisions by the NLRB have sparked significant concern among employers and merit consideration by any company, whether unionized or not.
In June 2015, an administrative law judge with the NLRB ruled that Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. had unlawfully terminated an employee, after that employee had shouted racist comments during a Steelworkers strike in Findlay, Ohio. And in late March 2015, two NLRB members ruled that a catering company unlawfully terminated an employee who called his manager a “nasty mother f*****” and mentioned the manager’s mother in a Facebook post. In both cases, the NLRB found that the employee had engaged in protected activity under the nation’s labor laws, regardless of the content of the obscene comments.