Employee Threat, Name-Calling, Protected By NLRB

A recent NLRB decision “vastly expanded the boundaries of conduct that is inappropriate but still protected,” says a legal alert from McGuire Woods. When a used car salesman, a non-union employee, was told he that if he didn’t like the pay he could look elsewhere for a job, he responded with obscenities and told the manager that if he fired him, he’d regret it. The writers detail the circumstance and how the NLRB parsed it out, and they conclude that employers are going to have to think twice before firing an employee “for obscene or mildly to moderately threatening conduct if the conduct is related to otherwise protected, concerted activity covered by the NLRB.”