NLRB: Position on Confidentiality of Workplace Investigations Is Reversed

Our colleague Steven M. Swirsky at Epstein Becker Green has recently published a post on the Management Memo blog that will be of interest to our readers in the health care industry: “NLRB Reverses Position on Confidentiality Concerning Workplace Investigations – Holds That Confidentiality Requirements Are Presumptively Lawful.”

Following is an excerpt:

The National Labor Relations Board, in its December 17^th decision in Apogee Retail LLC d/b/a Unique Thrift Store, has reversed its prior rule and held that employer requirements that employees treat workplace investigations as confidential are “presumptively lawful.”  The Apogee decision overturns the Board’s 2015 Banner Estrella decision, which had required that an employer seeking to impose confidentiality in connection with a workplace investigation was required to prove, on a case by case basis, that the integrity of an investigation would be compromised without confidentiality.

The Board concluded that the framework set forth in Banner Estrella improperly placed the burden of proving that confidentiality was necessary on the employer and was inconsistent with the Board’s test developed in The Boeing Company for determining whether a facially neutral rule unlawfully interfered with employees’ rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. …

Read the full article here.