Employers often maintain policies prohibiting off-duty employees from accessing their facilities. The NLRB has maintained its “Tri-County Medical” rule for nearly 40 years: an employer’s rule barring off-duty employee access to a facility is valid only if it (1) limits access solely to the interior of the facility, (2) is clearly disseminated to all employees, and (3) applies to off-duty access for all purposes, not just for union activity. In two recent decisions, the Board interpreted the third prong of Tri-County Medical to significantly limit employers’ ability to prohibit off-duty access by employees.
In St. John’s Health Center, 357 NLRB No. 170 (2011), the Board invalidated a hospital’s policy that permitted employees to come onto hospital property “to attend Health center sponsored events, such as retirement parties and baby showers.” And in Sodexo, 358 NLRB No. 79 (2012), the Board invalidated a hospital’s rule that permitted off-duty employees access for “hospital related business,” which was defined as “the pursuit of the employee’s normal duties or duties as specifically directed by management.” The 2012 Board majority disallowed this rule because it gave the hospital “free rein to set the terms of off-duty employee access.” Former Member Hayes dissented in both decisions, stating that, under the majority view, an employer cannot maintain a valid off-duty access policy if it permits activities “as innocuous as allowing employees to pick up paychecks or complete employment-related paperwork.”Continue Reading NLRB Reverses Sodexo Off Duty Access Decision – a Crack in the Door After Noel Canning…Or Not?
Allow us to pat ourselves on the back for a moment. Prognosticating from 2013 into the future, we 
Employers like separation agreements. Separation agreements, of course, are contracts that employees sign when their employment is terminated that allows them to be paid severance and in exchange they usually give up the right to sue their employer. Separation agreements provide finality to employment terminations by offering employers protection from claims and potential claims. The agreements many employers use are often standardized and have served them well for years. But now might be the time to take another look at those documents, lest the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) looks first.
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed 
In this week’s mid-term election on November 4, Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia became the latest jurisdictions to pass referendums decriminalizing the recreational possession and use of small amounts of marijuana. They join Colorado and Washington, which took this step in 2012. Oregon’s law becomes effective in July 2015; Alaska’s probably in February 2015.
On October 28, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued its decision in Murphy Oil USA Inc., once again attempting to prohibit employers from requiring employees to enter into agreements to arbitrate employment disputes if those agreements preclude collective or class action litigation. As we have blogged about in the past, this new decision runs contrary to an overwhelming majority of federal district and appellate court decisions rejecting and criticizing the Obama NLRB’s previous attempt to so extend the law. A copy of the Murphy Oil USA decision can be found 
In a 5-4 decision, the Washington Supreme Court has ruled in an employer’s favor and clarified what are, and are not, statutory “wages” and unlawful wage “rebates” under Washington State’s Wage Rebate Act (“WRA”), RCW 49.52 et seq. The case is 
Most competent employment lawyers with experience pursuing and/or rebuffing enforcement of noncompetition agreements know that enforcement against low level workers is highly unlikely. If recent news reports are true, Jimmy John’s apparently never got that memo.