Does federal labor law protect employee walkouts to support political protest? Not according to a memo issued recently by some members of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) Division of Advice. The memo concluded that a major technology company lawfully terminated employees who organized a 2024 workplace walkout to support a political protest campaign, highlighting the challenges employees may face when seeking protection under federal labor law for advocacy related to social and political issues.
Hugh Murray, chair of McCarter’s Labor & Employment practice, told Law360 that cases involving social and political protests are highly fact-specific and that a board in a different administration could reach a different conclusion. He also noted that the NLRB is “not a general free speech” statute, making the line between protected and unprotected conduct difficult to predict.
“It’s designed to allow people to have a voice in wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, not really solving the world’s problems, necessarily,” he said.