A Michigan hospital violated the National Labor Relations Act when it offered a severance agreement to permanently furloughed employees that prohibited them from making statements that could disparage or harm the image of the hospital and from disclosing the agreement’s terms, the National Labor Relations Board held in a 3-1 decision Tuesday.
In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted operations, McLaren Macomb Hospital issued temporary furloughs to 11 union-member employees before permanently furloughing them in June of the same year, the Board said.
McLaren Macomb offered the employees severance agreements that included a nondisclosure clause which required employees to agree not to “disclose information, knowledge or materials of a confidential, privileged, or proprietary nature” and not to “make statements to Employer’s employees or to the general public which could disparage or harm the image of Employer, its parent and affiliated entities and their officers, directors, employees, agents and representatives.”
But these restrictions violated Section 8 of the NLRA because they unlawfully restrained and coerced the employees’ exercise of their Section 7 rights, the majority of the Board held.
In doing so, NLRB overturned the contrary findings of an administrative law judge, who held that the severance agreement did not violate Section 8 based on a test articulated in the 2020 cases Baylor University Medical Center and International Game Technology.
In Baylor and...
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