A Not So Slippery Slope

So the NLRB ruled this summer that a security companies rule preventing fraternization was legal, and has ever since been trying to spin that it wasn't an open door to further control over after hours activity by employers. Except the argument doesn't make a lot of sense when you read the rule.

The NLRB claims:

" It argued workers would interpret the fraternization rule as merely a ban on dating and not a ban on association among co-workers, say for an after-work game of slow-pitch."

Except for the fact that the company's rule distinguished between the two:

"fraternize on duty or off duty, date or become overly friendly with the clients' employees or with co-employees."

The company was clear to mention both, so they didn't mean fraternization to mean "date" they meant date to mean "date."

So what did the company mean? They probably didn't mean slow-pitch, but they may very well have meant union and political activity. Given that two of the three current members are Bush appointees it's not a far stretch to think that the NLRB would view companies prohibiting those activities as being permissible, in their world view those sorts of activities never lead to any good.