Employees participating in Black Lives Matter protests or demonstrations against crackdowns on undocumented workers are protected by federal labor law, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer said.
Political and social justice advocacy qualifies as a protected activity when it directly connects with workers’ interests as employees, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said during a webinar hosted by Cornell University on Wednesday. Black Lives Matter protests and those supporting undocumented workers have the “objective goal of mutual aid and protection, and concern issues that employers control,” she said.
Abruzzo said that an “employer can certainly control that people of color ...