Opinion ID: 185420
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Solicitation

Text: 27 The second claim raised by petitioner presents a closer issue, but only slightly. The Adtranz employee handbook contains a rule against soliciting and distribution without authorization. Adtranz maintains that this rule when read in context, does not discourage or chill protected activity. Instead, petitioner claims, the rules are clearly focused upon preventing work disruptions and curbing potential distractions. As above, the NLRB cites no evidence, let alone substantial evidence, to the contrary. Instead, the NLRB argues that the policy is unlawful on its face because it will chill protected labor activity. This, too, is not a reasonably defensible position. 28 Our decision in Aroostook County Regional Ophthalmology Center v. NLRB, 81 F.3d 209 (D.C. Cir. 1996), is instructive. In Aroostook, this Court reversed the NLRB's finding that a policy barring medical office employees from discussing grievances within earshot of patients constituted an unfair labor practice. We held that the NLRB could not declare such a policy to be facially unlawful based upon fanciful speculation, but rather had to consider the context in which the rule was applied and its actual impact on employees. As we explained: 29 In the absence of any evidence that [the employer] is imposing an unreasonably broad interpretation of the rule upon employees, the Board's determination to the contrary is unjustified. If an occasion arises where [the employer] is attempting to use the rule as the basis for imposing questionable restrictions upon employees' communications, the employees may seek review of the Company's actions at that time. However, the rule on its face is not unlawful. 30 81 F.3d at 213. 31 This legal standard should come as no surprise to the NLRB. Indeed, the NLRB has itself cautioned against parsing workplace rules too closely in a search for ambiguity that could limit protected activity. Rather, the Board should consider the realities of the workplace and the actual context in which rules are imposed. See Lafayette Park Hotel, 326 NLRB 824 (1998). In the Board's decision before us, however, there is no consideration of the context of Adtranz's rule, or its impact on employees. Indeed, the ALJ's decision adopted by the Board considered nothing more than the General Counsel's claim that the rule could reasonably interpreted as barring lawful union organizing propaganda or rhetoric. Adtranz ABB, 331 NLRB No. 40, slip op. at 3. 32 Unlike the cases relied upon by the ALJ for his decision, Our Way Inc., 268 NLRB 394 (1983); Laidlaw Transit Inc., 315 NLRB 79 (1994); Opryland Hotel, 323 NLRB 723 (1997); and Baldor Electric Co., 245 NLRB 614 (1979), the rule in question only applies to conduct during working time and in the work place. In these other cases the invalidated rules prohibited or restricted solicitation, handbilling and the like during breaks and meals-times when an employer could not usually claim to have a significant interest in preventing workplace distractions.  'Working time is for work' is a long-accepted maxim of labor relations. Our Way, 268 NLRB at 395 (quoting Peyton Packing Co., 49 NLRB 828, 843 (1943)). Therefore, rules prohibiting solicitation during working time are presumptively lawful because such rules imply that solicitation is permitted during nonworking time, a term that refers to the employees' own time. Id. at 394. Similarly, an employer's prohibition against employee distribution in work areas at all times is presumptively valid. Beverly Enterprises-Hawaii, Inc., 326 NLRB 335, 335 (1998). 33 The NLRB's decisions embody a long-held standard that rules banning solicitation during working time state with sufficient clarity that employees may solicit on their own time. Our Way, Inc., 268 NLRB at 395. But they also support the principle that the NLRB may not cavalierly declare policies to be facially invalid without any supporting evidence, particularly where, as here, there are legitimate business purposes for the rule in question and there is no suggestion that anti-union animus motivated the policy. 34 As with the rule against abusive language, Adtranz's rule applies across the board, so it cannot be said to discriminate against unionization efforts or other protected activity. Adtranz also proffered undisputed evidence to the ALJ demonstrating that there was widespread employee solicitation and distribution during non-worktime and that the company encouraged such activities. Not only did the NLRB fail to consider any of petitioner's evidence, it cites no evidence to support its concerns about chilling protected activity. Indeed, there is no evidence in the record--let alone substantial evidence--to suggest that any employees believed that the solicitation and distribution rule prohibited union activities, while some employees claimed the opposite. Thus, we find no basis for the NLRB's holding.