Opinion ID: 185992
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Employee Handbook

Text: 29 The Board found that Community violated § 8(a)(1) of the Act by maintaining Rules 1 and 8 in its Employee Handbook. Those rules respectively prohibit [i]nsubordination, refusing to follow directions, obey legitimate requests or orders, or other disrespectful conduct towards a [supervisor] or other individual, and [r]elease or disclosure of confidential information concerning patients or employees. The Board was concerned that an employee might interpret the term disrespectful conduct in Rule 1 to include solicitation of union support or concerted employee protest of supervisory activity, and that such protected activity might be chilled as a result. Order at 4. The Board was also concerned that an employee might think Rule 8 prohibited discussion of such subjects as wages and other terms of employment. Id. at 5. There is no evidence in the record that the handbook provisions actually chilled the protected activity of any employee. 30 Community raises the threshold objection that the Board should not have passed upon this allegation because it was not factually related to any of the allegations in the unfair labor practice charge with which the Union initiated this proceeding, see Lotus Suites, Inc. v. NLRB, 32 F.3d 588, 589 (D.C.Cir.1994); Nickles Bakery of Ind., Inc., 296 N.L.R.B. 927, 928, 1989 WL 224354 (1989). Community admits it failed timely to raise this issue at the hearing before the ALJ. Nevertheless, Community argues the relatedness requirement is jurisdictional, and can therefore be raised at any time. Not so. The exception to the rule that an objection to an agency decision must be timely raised before the agency in order for the court to grant review is limited to jurisdictional challenges that concern the very composition or constitution of an agency. Mitchell v. Christopher, 996 F.2d 375, 378 (D.C.Cir.1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). Community's challenge clearly is not of that nature; accordingly, its objection, not having been timely made, is forfeit. 31 We therefore turn to Community's objection to the merits of the Board's decision. The Board holds that the mere maintenance of a rule likely to have a chilling effect upon employees' rights to engage in activity protected by § 7 of the Act is an unfair labor practice. Lafayette Park Hotel, 326 N.L.R.B. 824, 825, 1998 WL 574958 (1998). Where the Board faithfully applies this standard ... we will enforce its rulings, but where the NLRB adopts an unreasonable or otherwise indefensible interpretation of the requirements of the Act, we will not. Adtranz ABB Daimler-Benz Transp., Inc. v. NLRB, 253 F.3d 19, 25 (D.C.Cir.2001). 32 Here the Board held Rule 1 was likely to discourage concerted employee protest of supervisory activity and vigorous proselytizing for or against a union. Order at 4. Community maintains that, like the rule in Adtranz prohibiting abusive or threatening language, 253 F.3d at 25 — which we found, contrary to the Board, was lawful, id. at 25-28 — Rule 1 is designed merely to maintain a civil and decent workplace, id. at 25, and is well tailored to meet that goal without chilling protected speech or conduct. 33 We agree. The Board objected chiefly to the Rule's prohibition of other disrespectful conduct. When read in context, however, that prohibition clearly does not apply to union organizing activity — including vigorous proselytizing; it applies to incivility and outright insubordination, in whatever context it occurs. Although Community's employees are perhaps unlikely to know the term ejusdem generis, they no doubt grasp as well as anyone the concept it encapsulates: The other disrespectful conduct to which Rule 1 refers is clearly conduct of a piece with insubordination or refusing to follow directions [or to] obey legitimate requests or orders. The Board's suggestion that employees would consider vigorous proselytizing for or against a union, or other protected activity, insubordinate within the condemnation of Rule 1, is implausible. In short, to quote the Board itself in a more realistic moment, any arguable ambiguity in the rule arises only through parsing the language of the rule, viewing the phrase ... in isolation, and attributing to the [employer] an intent to interfere with employee rights. Lafayette Park Hotel, 326 N.L.R.B. at 825. 34 The Board's concern with respect to Rule 8 was that employees might understand the [r]elease or disclosure of confidential information to include the revelation of information concerning terms and conditions of employment, including wages, Order at 5, the sharing of which is useful, indeed perhaps essential, to successful self-organizing. Community again argues the rule must in reason be read more narrowly to prevent disclosure only of sensitive patient and business information, and not to prohibit discussion with other employees or with union organizers of information about the terms of one's own employment. 35 Again we agree. The Board's objection to this provision appears to rest chiefly upon the possibility that an employee might believe the rule prohibits him from revealing information, such as wages or a disciplinary record, concerning himself. Unlike the provision at issue in Brockton Hospital v. NLRB, 294 F.3d 100, 106-07 (D.C.Cir.2002), however, the rule covers only confidential information. Confidential information is information that has been communicated or acquired in confidence. A reasonable employee would not believe that a prohibition upon disclosing information, acquired in confidence, concerning patients or employees would prevent him from saying anything about himself or his own employment. And to the extent an employee is privy to confidential information about another employee or about a patient, he has no right to disclose that information contrary to the policy of his employer. Cf. Aroostook County Reg'l Ophthalmology Ctr. v. NLRB, 81 F.3d 209, 213 (D.C.Cir.1996) (The Board does not question [a hospital's] right to require employees to protect patient privacy).