Clothing retailer Bettie Page must reinstate three terminated employees with back pay and rescind an unlawful handbook rule, said the National Labor Relations Board in affirming a lower court’s finding that the employer violated several provisions of the National Labor Relations Act.
The NLRB agreed that the employer violated the NLRA’s prohibition of unfair labor practices by discharging employees who engaged in protected concerted activity related to a Facebook posting. Most interestingly, in generally reviewing the retailer’s employee handbook, the NLRB found a violation that was not part of the employees’ complaint. A handbook rule prohibited the disclosure of wages or compensation to third parties, including other employees. The panel found that this rule violated the NLRA and had to be rewritten. (See Design Technology Group, LLC d/b/a Bettie Page Clothing and DTG California Management, LLC d/b/a Bettie Page Clothing, a single employer, 359 NLRB No. 96 (San Francisco, Calif., April 19, 2013).)
The NLRA gives employees the right to act together (concerted activity) to improve their working conditions. Concerted activity is activity “engaged in, with or on the authority of other employees, and not solely by and of the employee himself.” When several Bettie Page employees issued complaints to upper management that went ignored, the employees took to Facebook and complained about their working conditions. One employee even posted that she would be bringing a California Worker’s Rights book to work with her, telling her co-workers, “BOY will you be surprised by all the crap that’s going on that’s in violation.”
Shortly after, the employees who participated in the Facebook postings and other complaints were fired by their manager, who said that “things were not working out.” When the NLRB General Counsel got involved, however, it was Bettie Page’s employment practices and policies that weren’t working out. Click here for more details.