Today’s Key Takeaway: This section limits an employer’s right to free speech toward their employees and raises serious legal questions as well as introducing uncertainty about what an employer would be allowed to communicate to their employees.
Section 8:
This section prohibits an employer from taking an adverse employment action against an employee who refuses to attend an employer-sponsored meeting, “the primary point of which is to convey the employer’s opinion about religious or political matters.”
It also prohibits adverse employment action against an employee who refuses to listen to employer “communications,” the primary purpose of which is to convey the employer’s opinion about religious or political matters.”
An employer that violates these prohibitions is liable for lost wages resulting from the adverse employment action.
The term “political matters” is defined to include discussions about decisions of whether or not to join a labor organization, relating to elections for political office, political parties, candidates, and proposed legislation or regulations.
This section states that this prohibition does not bar employers from communicating information to their employees that is required by law, necessary for the employee to perform the job, directly related to or relevant to the workplace.
Employer Alert: Potential legal issues:
- This presumes that an employee has a First Amendment right to not hear their employer’s speech on religious or political issues. No such right exists unless the employer is the government.
- The First Amendment does not allow the government to engage in actions that limit a person’s freedom of speech or free exercise of religion.
- Private employers are not the government and these limitations do not apply to private employers. This section limits an employer’s right to free speech toward their employees.
- If this section goes into effect, the government, through this statute, will be limiting what an employer may say. That is suppressing the employer’s speech.
- This section would allow employees to walk out of any meeting or conversation in which an employer is discussing politics or religion that is not “relevant to” or “directly related to” the workplace.
- Who decides what political and religious speech is “relevant” or “irrelevant” to the workplace? It would be determined, first, by the employer who would have to decide whether to discipline an employee who walks out of a meeting or conversation. If an employee challenged an adverse employment action, an Alaskan court would decide.
- There’s also a good chance that the agency that oversees employee-pay and benefits in Alaska, the Labor Standards and Safety Division of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development would promulgate regulations to further refine when speech is “relevant” or “directly related to” the workplace.
An example: Remember the Alaska’s Fair Share ballot initiative from a few years ago? Most of Alaska’s economy is tied to oil revenues to the state and the strength of North Slope employment.
Would a restaurant owner in Anchorage run afoul of this provision if she disciplined an employee for walking away from the boss who was discussing how a “Yes” vote would negatively impact the number of customers that go to the restaurant?
Is that conversation “directly related to, or relevant to, the workplace”? It can be argued either way, and that uncertainty makes it hard for employers to know what crosses the line under this ballot measure.