Flex Logistics requires all of its employees to sign a one-page, at-will-employment agreement. The agreement includes a confirmation of that status with the following text: Employees at Flex Logistics are considered to be at-will. That means that you are free to leave employment without fault and Flex Logistics is free to separate you from employment without fault. In addition, nothing that is written by Flex Logistics about your terms or conditions of employment, including rules of behavior, are to be considered contractual in nature because Flex Logistics does not enter into employment contracts with employees. The Teamsters begin an organizing campaign at Flex Logistics and look at its policies to see if there is some restriction on the employee’s Section 7 rights. It files a charge with the NLRB. Specify under the recent Boeing decision whether the agreement as written violates the NLRA and explain why under the framework factors.
The best way to approach this problem is to compare the examples in each of the Boeing categories to the footnoted rules in Cayuga. Category 1 are general rules of civility. Category 2 are rules requiring balancing Section 7 rights against the reason(s) for the rule's existence. Category 3 are those rules illegal on their face. In Cayuga, Clinical Excellence and Customer Service fall under Category 1 as general rules of civility. People and Community rules fall under Category 2 because they are not general rules of civility but require an application to determine illegality particularly under Community when a violation depends on the consideration of others. If there were general rules of civility, a violation would be self apparent. Last, the use of a proper channel under People is not a general rule of civility. Last, the Board did not apply Boeing to the footnoted rules because the assessment of those rules required consideration of their application, which was partially done in Cayuga.