An administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that Quicken Loans, Fathead and four other companies owned by Dan Gilbert violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
According to the document filed on the NLRB website, Judge David I. Goldman found that many rules in Quicken Loans' employee manual, called "the Big Book," violate the National Labor Relations Act. He also wrote that many rules do not violate the NLRA.
The case began when Hugh MacEachern filed an unfair labor practice charge in February 2016.
In the decision, Judge Goldman wrote that the companies "must be ordered to cease and desist therefrom and to take certain affirmative action designed to effectuate the policies of the Act."
According to the court document, the companies did rescind all versions of "the Big Book" on Dec. 4, 2015.
All of the companies must also cease and desist from several rules that include, "'Maintaining an overly broad rule that states “If it doesn’t belong on the front page of the New York Times, don’t put it online,' maintaining an overly broad rule that states that 'individuals who submit a complaint or report or who participate in an investigation will be expected to agree 35 to keep the complaint, report and investigation confidential,'" among many other rules.
7 Action News reached out to Quicken Loans for comment. They have released the following statement:
The NLRB, and its administrative judges, are setting a dangerous precedent with this ruling. It is disconcerting that the NLRB found fault with common, rational and sensible workplace policies that no reasonable employee would object to in any manner, such as prohibiting team members from posting offensive content on social media or using company resources for personal business. Even more disturbing, the NLRB found that our company's policies related to restricting the public distribution of private client information was a violation of labor regulations. Not only is this outrageous and misguided, but the NLRB ruling conflicts with several other sensible federal and state laws that were enacted to protect highly sensitive and private information that lenders routinely obtain from borrowers during the loan process. This ruling exceeds the boundaries of rationality on numerous levels and we will clearly be challenging it in the court system where we expect to receive a hearing from a judge who will be guided by the laws of the United States and sagacity.
Read the entire decision below
