Employers can ban off-duty workers from all fraternization

[Rose Siding]

It is a regular pastime for co-workers to chat during a coffee break, at a union hall, or over a beer about workplace issues, good grilling recipes, and celebrity gossip. Yet a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) allows employers to ban off-duty fraternizing among co-workers, severely weakening the rights of free association and speech, and violating basic standards of privacy for America's workers.

So how did the NLRB decide to weaken fundamental workplace protections? Security firm Guardsmark instituted a rule directing employees not to "fraternize on duty or off duty, date, or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees." In September 2003, the Service Employees International Union filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against Guardsmark, claiming that the company's work rules inhibited its employees' Section 7 rights.

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act grants workers the right to "self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations…and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection..." While the law allows employers to ban association among co-workers during work hours, Guardsmark's rule was broader in that it applied to the off-duty association of co-workers.
...
While there are reasons for employers to ban dating among co-workers (namely to prevent sexual harassment), prohibiting off-duty fraternization is something quite different. Such a ban inevitably chills collective action of any sort—be it on a purely social basis or related to employees discussing whether to form a union or not.

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/workersrights/eye7_2005.cfm

[sam sarrha]

1. The more Bush acts like God the more his Minions folow suit...

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Best way to kill this kind of thing....

...is to have both parties fraternize at CHURCH or church related activities and then sue the living fuck out of the company if they so much as raise an eyebrow.

[converted_democrat]

9. I like the way you think!!!!! n/t

[Gay Green]

I like it, too!!

But eventually the churches and the corporations will despise each other and in a GOP corporate state, guess which will have the upper hand? :scared:

[B Calm]

32. We use to have Union meetings in the basement of a church...

[theHandpuppet]

39. What an excellent idea!

That ruling is so ludicrous I don't see how in hell it could ever be legally upheld. What if some co-worker vets fraternize at the local American Legion? If several co-workers "fraternize" at AA, play on a softball team together, are leaders of your local Girl/Boy Scouts, belong to the local chapter of the ACLU or the PTA, are volunteers for the local food pantry or Habitat for Humanity, et al ad infinitum. This ruling would be impossible to enforce, unless workers are to be incarcerated rather than employed!

Who the hell is sitting on the board of the NLRB anyway and what planet are they from?

[smirkymonkey]

3. What?? I can't believe this!

Maybe I am overreacting, but I find this alarming! I am surprised it hasn't gotten more attention.

[havocmom]

6. Very alarming. Means an employer gets to screen the pals you choose

for your off duty time AND prevents any labor organizing. Employers will not rest until they install off switches on everyone so they can turn them off and on just when they need them, like, you know, the rest of the office/production equipment! They really hate people and do not want to deal with human needs. They want cogs and they are legislating behavior toward that end.

Done with work? Take your pill on the way out. It will give you just enough time to get home before it renders you unconscious until it's time to get ready for work tomorrow...

THX1138 - here comes the worker bees... no personal existence. Resistance is futile...

Workers need to realize they are strong together. Employers know it and fear it.

[smirkymonkey]

8. Paving the way for the revolution....

[havocmom]

18. Let's just say powder is dry

in my neighborhood

[AuntieM1957]

24. If the corporations own the media outlets

and the NLRB ruling favors corporate employers did you truly think they would cover it?

once again, the corporate media squelches the truth.

I no longer rely on USA media outlets for the news. It makes many sources to gather the whole picture. That's why DU is invaluable to me. I have the benefit of all DUers research and insight to assist in reaching my own conclusions.

[City Lights]

4. How can something like this possibly be enforced?

Are they going to follow around people they suspect are fraternizing? What a bunch of bullshit!

[annabanana]

5. I hope the ACLU is all over this crap

(in a small town, it just might be impossible to avoid "fraternizing" with co-workers..... and what if you're related?)

[havocmom]

7. More and more legislating litigation; soon there won't be courts for ACLU

to go to. The mechanisms for the corporate state are in place or just about finished. They appoint corporate criminals to positions to set policy then make legal what they want to be legal and make illegal what they don't want anyone to be able to do.

Learn to grow food and can. Learn to do as much for yourself as possible. The US population is about to become a hive.

edit: typo

[wli]

20. there already aren't, that's what the Federalist Society is for

[fortyfeetunder]

22. yeah, how does this work in a company town?

Where there is one dominant employer? This is inane at best.

[Pushed To The Left]

33. Things like this are why groups like the ACLU

are so important! www.aclu.org If all 70.000 DUers went there and donated $5 or more, it could really send a message.

[Callalily]

10. I'm extremely lucky

in this regard. My place of employment encourages camaraderie among colleagues. We're always getting together for something or other. And sometimes, "just for the hell of it". Ah, but I work for a non-profit, maybe that has something to do with it.

[meganmonkey]

19. Me too - what would we do without our occasional happy hours together?

Damn. Thank goodness for nonprofit employment. So I'll never make more than $40 grand, who gives a shit - as long as I can afford to go to the bar with my friend/colleagues sometimes!!!

:toast:

edit for spelling

[dogday]

11. The Corporations wants us to be like Prison Inmates

The Prison System is the largest growing business in this country and it is due to the fact that they have 24 hour control over their employees. They like that and these guys don't have a choice.

When it gets to the point where you will starve or work a job that wants control of your off-duty hours, what are you going to do? I don't like it at all. We had a company fire a woman for smoking off duty while at a club. She had stopped years before,and just had the urge to smoke at a club and pow they got her for smoking when she said on her application she did not smoke....

I knew they have been wanting 24/7 control over their employees, I just did think it would happen in America, land of the free.....

[Viva_La_Revolution]

14. return of the 'company store' nt

[wli]

21. the shackles and stun belts will come out soon enough

After all, they'll have to restrain employees to keep them "safe" and "humanely encourage" them to work harder.

[napi21]

12. Many businesses forbid dating, even the Military forbids

fraternization between officers and enlisted, and all the places I've worked insisted that if 2 employees married, one had to quit.

Company is banning fraternization with Client's employees, and I can understand that too. The name of the Company implies it is a "Guard" service of some kind. The risk they're trying to avoid is having a guard look the other way, just for a good friend.

I don't understand banning fraternization of it's OWN employees when off duty!

The statement "Security firm Guardsmark instituted a rule directing employees not to "fraternize on duty or off duty, date, or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees." is very poorly written. The part "client's employees or with co-employees" isn't straight forward. "Co-employees" of who? Cuardmark? Of the Client?

I suggest contacting the ACLU on this one. Employers can make a lot of demands, but they have to be substantieted by some kind of logic or they will be legally struck down.. THE NLRB may have made a ruling, but they aren't a court!

[Pepperbelly]

40. Guardsmark doesn't pay enough to demand jack shit from ...

their employeees. Fuck them and their minions.

[screembloodymurder]

13. This is unconstitutional.

This means a CEO can't play golf with clients. Right.

[Nobody]

15. Does this mean I can't carpool?

After all, we might actually HAVE A CONVERSATION. Ooooh. How scary.

Every time I think the corporate world has hit rock bottom, I see crap like this.

[troubleinwinter]

23. Carpooling would hurt oil company profits.

[Mich Otter]

16. Silly Americans

Don't you understand that the real power is with the corporations. They rule.
We are suppose to just shut the hell up and serve our masters as they wish.
Stop with your silly wants like; unions, decent wages, safe working conditions, retirements, health care, etc. What are you, a bunch of Socialists? Do you really believe people have the right to take from corporations?
The real Golden Rule: those who have the gold, make the rules.
I need a beer. If I go to get one, will my company approve of you if I meet you while getting the beer?

[brokensymmetry]

17. It's great to live in a free country.

Or at least, that's what I've heard.

[gollygee]

25. How would that work in a small town

where everyone works at one or two places?

These rulings always seem silly. How many people meet their spouse at work? How many people made their best friend at work?

[DanCa]

26. Wtf?

I can see dating, but the rest is just so incredibly orewellian.

[dsc]

27. I am glad I read the whole article

While I certainly have problems with the decision, this isn't what the headline and early part of the article clearly suggests it to be. The company can't legally ban workers from associating with each other in their off hours. The solution here if for the people involved to be educated as to what the policy really allows.

[niallmac]

28. Do you have a link to where you read the whole thing? Thanks.n/t

[dsc]

31. In the OP

the link is provided in the original post.

[neweurope]

36. I also read the article and it does NOT get any better.

Read again: "Since employers are not obligated to inform employees of their legally-protected right to associate with their co-workers, how can we expect any employee to assume that a rule banning fraternization doesn't interfere with these rights? And why would someone risk violating a no-fraternization rule, given that most employees work 'at will'—meaning they can be fired for no reason?"

Even if you were right - and you aren't - this should be fought! If nobody protests this then what will be the NEXT thing they come up with??

--------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[neweurope]

37. self delete

[dsc]

44. what is to stop us from informing them of their rights?

nothing. The board made it pretty clear that the only legal interpretation of that rule is avoiding affairs and the like. We just need to make sure workers are informed of that.

[leftofthedial]

29. puts a crimp in unionization, eh?

it's time to start exerting worker's power in tangible, irreversible ways.

[Hidden Stillness]

30. This is All Still Only the Beginning...

Step by step, neocon ultra-corporate Republicans become more threatening all the time, leading to actual law changes that no modern person thought they would ever live to witness. It is reaching the stage where they are bringing back the Gilded Age and erasing the entire New Deal, throwing us back to an unregulated 19th century, where you soon will not be able to sue any corporation for anything they do (recent bills passed in Congress about the drug industry, gun makers and dealers, nursing homes, medical device manufacturers, etc.)--like a living nightmare.

You think there is some limit, and it will stop, but I don't believe that anymore; I fear where this will all lead to, as we all sink into total, inescapable poverty, and our wages will only go down.

Ford Motors, believe it or not, it was true, used to have Security forces and an actual "morality department" where employees were forced to learn how to conduct themselves like nice ladies and gentlemen, dance, dress, not wear makeup, and Security would actually go to employees' homes, check their cupboards for liquor--in their own homes!--and if they had any, they were fired. No recourse. I believe this abuse, and many others by Ford, such as having a Ford guard stand right outside the lavatory to listen, when the workers "claimed" they had to go to the bathroom, went on until the 1940s. (As I recall, the PBS series, "America: A People's History" had an episode on the '30s-'40s fights of the unions against terrible auto industry abuse, and any real union history will tell you.) Remember, corporations used to hire goons to beat and even shoot strikers. No recourse; and now that there are no departments of Government and no courts--only the Republican Party--I don't know where this will end. It can only be fought with an opposition; Republicans will never stop themselves.

[Pushed To The Left]

34. This should be a campaign issue

I'd love to see a federal ban on "at-will employment"! What employees do on their own time is their business, not their employer's!

[B Calm]

35. Thats why I'm against drug tests at work! Employers have a right

to a drug free work place, but I'll be damn if they have a right to a drug free worker. What we do on our own time is none of their damn business!

[neweurope]

38. Several DUers argue logically here - for instance

"what if they are related?" "What if it is the only employer in a small town?"

Forget it.

Once you start arguing like this you have already accepted that the employer CAN limit your contacts off work. He can not!

We sell them our work. We do not sell them our souls! What we do once we leave the workplace is OUR time. We can spend it where and with whom we want. Anything else should be fought tooth and nail!

------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[BedRock]

41. Been there...

...working for a company that had a policy such as that, specifically for dating.
The company operated on 12 hour rotating shifts, the work was high stress, environmentally "challenging," and was mentally and physically hard work. It was also 90% male, so the guy hanging together was OK, but no dating with the females.
I met a guy at work, became friends at work, and started dating on the sly. We started living together. And for 6 months no one knew! When management seriously threatened out jobs I told them he could stuff it. Go on and fire us, because since he had no idea for 6 months his argument was crap, I would love to call every single person in the lab to testify..as well as himself.
He shut up, but made our lives hell for it. But you know what?? After 5 more years we quit. We are very happily married, I'm "retired", husb. has gone back to school and gotten his PhD and loving the work he does. Management? Now he is divorced, forced into a dead end job, and has had a major pay cut. Karma baby.
So I would love see this decision challenged. Because what an employee does after work is his own affair as long as it does not negatively impact his job performance. I wonder if the Supreme Courts would uphold his? Talk about Constitution shattering.
We have got to get those shits out of the Capitol.

[WyLoochka]

42. I'm more fortunate than many it appears

My employer promotes fraternization on and off hours. This weekend it's actually "soritization" - the women went camping! No husbands, boyfriends, or kids allowed.

The golfers golf together on weekends. Three of them did 36 holes a couple of Sundays ago - in 115 degree heat. Now we know them as the "mad dogs."

Getting a softball team going.

Once every few months or so there is a happy hour thing that is promoted, uninhibited by management, amongst the staff for the week leading up to it.

Then there are the once a month lunches that include everyone for which the employer foots the bill.

40 employees. A small outpost, in this increasingly neo feudal world, where human dignity is valued.

I'm very grateful for this pleasant refuge.

[wishlist]

43. The National Labor Relations Board under Bush is very pro-employer

When I was a union steward over 5 years ago during the Clinton Administration, the National Labor Relations Board was much more labor friendly and could be counted on in most cases to put the interest of fairness for employees first over the self-serving agenda of the employer. The current board under Bush is much more likely to take the employer's side in grievances. A couple of years ago they promptly overturned (with one strongly dissenting opinion) a victory from an arbitrator that my union had won for our employees on a case involving our pay where employer failed to follow terms of our contract.

Having been out of union work for several years, I was not aware of this latest outrage by the NLRB. One more big blow for American workers under the Bush Administration.

[AgadorSparticus]

45. Micro managing control freaks in these corporations are out of control!

What a bunch of pound foolish pinheads. They'd get far more profits, production, motivation, creativity, and morale if they'd just PLAY NICE.

I've heard some hospitals make their employees wear a badge where their position is transmittable. Talk about a police state. How ridiculous. I can't imagine this being effective for business.