Compliance Stuff

On March 3, 2026, Administrative Law Judge Robert A. Giannasi held that employer Valley Radiology violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”) by offering an employee a severance agreement with overbroad non-disparagement and confidentiality provisions, adopting the National Labor Relations Board’s (the “Board”) 2023 reasoning in McLaren Macomb. The Prior McLaren Macomb Decision Section 7 of the Act guarantees employees the right to “self-organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Section 8(a)(1) prohibits an employer from interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights. In the McLaren Macomb decision, the Board held that the non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses in an employer’s severance agreemen...

The White House’s recent push to require all federal employees to sign non-disclosure agreements may have you wondering whether NDAs might be right for your organization. While they’re one of your most powerful tools for protecting confidential business information, trade secrets, and competitive advantages, they’re also one of the easiest agreements to get wrong. Here’s an eight-step plan for deploying effective and legally compliant NDAs. 1. If an Employee Accesses Confidential Information, Use an NDA If an employee has any access to confidential business information, then you should have them sign an NDA. They are your first line of defense against trade secret theft. These agreements are generally subject to far less scrutiny than non-compete agreements and can appropriately be used with a broader subset of employees. Trade secret laws require that employers take reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of their sensitive information, and having an NDA in place could help you ma...