From the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to the Department of Labor, the trend among most administrative agencies that regulate the workplace is to recognize the evolving nature of acceptable conduct at work and to encourage that trend where it leads to higher expectations of employee interaction and human decency. When it comes to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the opposite is true.

The NLRB recently issued a decision that grants employees broad leeway to make lewd, lascivious, racist or otherwise inappropriate comments at work so long as those comments are connected in some way to terms and conditions of employment. This decision builds on years of NLRB precedent that allows for hateful and obscene rhetoric to be uttered along a picket line during a labor dispute. In an era of increased union activity and organizing, employers must be aware of the broad latitude the NLRB gives employees to make comments that any human relations (HR) professional would deem unacceptable in the workplace—so long as those comments can be connected in some way (no matter how remote) to activity protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

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