NLRB Finds Verizon Violated Employees' Right to Place Signs in Cars on Company Property
On March 10, 2015, the NLRB issued a ruling in a nearly seven-year-old unfair labor practice case filed by Local 2324 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and litigated by Attorney Alfred Gordon O'Connell, finding that Verizon violated the rights of employees to put Union signs in their cars on Company property. In so holding, the Board determined that an arbitrator's contrary decision was "repugnant" to the National Labor Relations Act even under the old more permissive deferral standards for arbitral awards.
The case arose in 2008 when, in advance of the expiration of the CBA between Verizon and the IBEW, Union members in Western Massachusetts placed informational picketing signs in the windows of their private vehicles on Company property calling for Verizon to honor their contract. The Company threatened to discipline any employees who put the signs in their cars, and the Union filed charges with the NLRB. Former Regional Director Rosemary Pye deferred the matter to arbitration, and an arbitrator shockingly found that placing the signs in cars amounted to "picketing" in violation of the no-picketing clause in the CBA.
The Union objected to the award as being inconsistent with settled law, but Regional Director Pye decided to defer to the arbitrator's award. Then, when the General Counsel reversed her deferral decision, Pye decided to dismiss the case again on the merits. Ultimately the NLRB General Counsel ordered the Regional Director to issue a complaint, resulting in an adverse ruling by an Administrative Law Judge that the Union and NLRB General Counsel appealed to the Board.
A ruling by the full Board was delayed for more than three years due to the struggles over the failure of the Republican Congress to confirm President Obama's nominees to the Board and the challenge over his recess appointments. In the intervening time, the parties in this case saw the expiration of two CBAs without any clear guidance on the rights of members, and the NLRB issued a ruling in a separate decision tightening the deferral standards for arbitral awards. In today's ruling, however, the Board held that even under the more permissive deferral standards, the employees have a protected right to place signs in their vehicles and that such right can be waived only if done so clearly and unmistakably.
This ruling in this case, coming at a time when the IBEW Locals are mobilizing around the upcoming expiration of their current CBA, makes clear that employees' right to communicate for mutual aid and protection will not be compromised by boilerplate contract language.
