The District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partly remanded a decision of the National Labor Relations Board, finding that the agency “prejudicially erred” in holding that a Vermont technology company unlawfully terminated a group of employees for sharing their pay and commenting on their workplace conditions, according to a May 26 ruling.
Per the court, an NLRB administrative law judge rightfully determined that Vermont Information Processing, Inc. violated federal labor laws when it fired the employees for creating and disseminating a spreadsheet that shared pay information.
This constituted protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act, according to the D.C. Circuit, and the NLRB judge did not err by expanding the relevant conduct at issue to include the employees’ electronic messages about the spreadsheet as well as the termination of one of the creators for his role in the group’s protected activity.
But when NLRB affirmed the judge’s findings, its order violated the company’s due process rights by sweeping in additional communications between the employees on subjects pertaining to a broad category of “workplace conditions.” The court held that VIP did not have notice that such communications would be considered protected conduct by the agency and therefore did not receive an opportunity to rebut arguments related to them.
“In so doing, the Board stretched the charged conduct beyond its breaking point,” the D.C. Circuit said. “New arguments...
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