T-Mobile USA, Inc. v. NLRB

T-Mobile USA, Inc. (T-Mobile) (plaintiff) was a company that sold cell phones and telecommunications services. T-Mobile’s employee handbook had four policies that came to the attention of the National Labor Relations Board (the board) (defendant). The Concerned Workers of America filed charges against T-Mobile with the National Labor Relations Board, and the board issued a complaint asserting that some of T-Mobile’s policies transgressed the National Labor Relations Act (the act). The four policies at issue were (1) a workplace-conduct policy that expected employees to keep a positive work environment; (2) a commitment-to-integrity policy that restricted a nonexclusive list of conduct such as arguing, fighting, and theft; (3) a recording policy that restricted video and audio recording or photography without authorization; and (4) an acceptable-use policy that restricted transmission of nonpublic, proprietary information. The board found that each of these policies violated the act’s protection of concerted activity among employees. The board ruled that a reasonable employee would (1) interpret the encouragement of a work environment that is positive as restraining concerted activity such as contentious conversations about unionizing, (2) view the restriction on arguing and fighting as restraining vigorous deliberations on labor topics, (3) see the restraint on recording as forbidding concerted activity, and (4) interpret the restraint on sharing nonpublic information as a prohibition on sharing information in an employee’s email related to benefits or compensation. T-Mobile appealed the board’s decision. The board filed a cross-petition seeking enforcement of its order.