Soliciatation Policies
Dfox
39 Posts
Our Health Committee recently conducted a health fair. During the health fair, they invited several vendors to attend. Two of the vendors were banks soliciting for clients. We are concerned that we have opened the door to union solicitations because we allowed thes vendors in the door. What do you think?
Comments
So, I have a question on this: Does it matter what's being allowed to be solicited/sold?
Does this also apply if an employee is selling items? What if an employee has a small business on the side selling arts & crafts or scarves or something and the company allows them to sell them in the office. Would that open you up to the same dangers?
And what about allowing employees to solicit for outside organizations as seemingly benign as Girl Scouts (for cookies)? That's technically an outside organization too, isn't it?
Could a union point to situations like these as a way in? Seriously, I thought I read that if an employer allows employees to solicit on behalf of an organization such as Girl Scouts via company e-mail, then it opens the door for unions to do the same thing.
CTCarter - I think you are correct. I too have read somewhere that if you allow employees to solicit for one thing then it opens the door to having to allow for other things like unions. I also read that you could allow employees to talk about such things only during non-working hours (i.e. before/after work or during a lunch break) and in a non-working area (i.e. lunch/break room or parking lot).
HR.BLR.com has a sample policy - Collection, Solicitation, and Organizaton of Employees - that you can look at if you need a sample.
[quote user="IT HR"]
I also read that you could allow employees to talk about such things only during non-working hours (i.e. before/after work or during a lunch break) and in a non-working area (i.e. lunch/break room or parking lot).
[/quote]
It depends on which such things we're talking about. You run afoul of the Wagner act if you restrict covered employees from engaging in concerted protected activity. Discussing the terms and conditions of work for mutual benefit or protection among 2 or more covered people is protected concerted activity. The possibility of engaging in a certification drive is a covered activity. That doesn't mean covered employees can stop doing their jobs and chit-chat about their paychecks all day but it does mean that you need to be careful about how you restrict certain kinds of speech and what your justification is. Written policies that gag covered employees from discussing their pay, pay changes, jobs, duties, and the like are not enforceable last I saw.
Would you interfere with a discussion if it were about baseball?