News and Events

5th Annual ABA Section of Labor and Employment Law Conference

Event

Towards Justice Attorney Valerie Collins will be presenting at this event on Saturday, November 13.

Revisiting the Scope of โ€œProtectedโ€ Activity

In the recent past the nature of work has dramatically changed โ€“ both with respect to working conditions, e.g., working from home, as well as regarding the scope of issues that employees believe impact their working conditions, including those that have historically been characterized as โ€œpolitical speech.โ€ Is wearing a mask with a social or humanitarian message โ€œBlack Lives Matterโ€ protected activity? Does organizing a walk-out to protest an employerโ€™s use of employeesโ€™ labor to support activities that the employees believe to be unethical and which may impact their working conditions constitute protected activity? Should employeesโ€™ conduct of organizing around their employerโ€™s expenditure of funds to support or reject matters of social concern be considered โ€œprotectedโ€ under the NLRA? Not only are employees rethinking what constitutes โ€œworkplace concerns,โ€ employers, too, are increasingly engaging in โ€œspeechโ€ that employees may perceive as impacting their working conditions. The panel will address whether humanitarian or social justice issues should be protected under the NLRA.