Employer Rule Mandating Courtesy Found Unlawful, by Barbara Halpin

Posted by Attorney Roger L. Pettit / Comments

One would think that an employer rule mandating its employees to be courteous would be good business practice.  The NLRB, however, in Karl Knauz Motors, Inc. d/b/a Knauz BMW and Robert Becker, (Case 13-CA-046452) recently upheld a judge’s ruling that an employer’s rule mandating courtesy violated the National Labor Relations Act.  The rule in the employee handbook stated,

“Courtesy is the responsibility of every employee.  Everyone is expected to be courteous, polite and friendly to our customers, vendors and suppliers, as well as to their fellow mployees.  No one should be disrespectful or use profanity or any other language which injures the image or reputation of the Dealership.”

The fatal flaw is the failure of the handbook or actual rule to exclude Section 7 protected activities from the rule.  The NLRB wrote that employees might construe forbidding “language which injures the image or reputation of the Dealership” as prohibiting certain Section 7 protected communication such as statements to coworkers or supervisors about working conditions.   (See my previous post on a similar rule that prohibited online statements that may “damage the Company, defame any individual or damage any person’s reputation.”)  The NLRB wrote that an employee interpreting this rule may believe that the company would find statements “of protest or criticism as ‘disrespectful’ or ‘injurious to the image or reputation of the Dealership.’”

The NLRB noted that if the rule just contained the first sentence it might agree that it was lawful.  Adding the second sentence, however, conveyed that certain statements were forbidden, violating section 8(a)(1) of the Act (which forbids a work rule that “tends to chill” employees in the exercise of Section 7 rights).