Fraternizing w/ your coworkers

[akarunway 1]

Damn. I missed this one. The NLRB is getting WAY outta hand. They also passed a recent one saying if you have even a helper at your job you are supervision and have no right to orginize. Story >February 5, 2007-- The American pastime of happy hour appeared
to be doomed when in July 2005, the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) issued a dangerous precedent-setting decision to
allow employers to ban "off-duty fraternizing" among co-workers.
In our outrage we publicized the ruling, which eventually sent
shockwaves far beyond the labor law community. Professors,
journalists, bloggers, privacy and workers' rights advocates,
lawyers, and workers themselves could all agree that the
Republican majority of the Board went too far in its decision
severely weakening the rights of free speech and association,
and violating basic standards of privacy for America's workers.

Yet this 'Big Brother' ruling was just overturned by the DC
Circuit Court, which ruled that an employer's ban on
"fraternizing" was illegal because employees would construe it
as a ban of union or concerted activity - and not just
socializing - outside of work hours.*

While we should all meet up after work to celebrate this
decision, it's a sad day when the when a higher court has to
save workers' rights from destruction from the agency created to
protect them.

To read our original July 2005 feature on this case, click here:

http://americanrightsatwork.org/workersrights/eye7_2005.cfm

To read Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson's August 2005
editorial about the decision, click here:

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/09/AR2005080901162.html

*Source: Guardsmark LLC v. NLRB, D.C. Cir., No. 05-1216, 2/2/07[/url]

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.