On July 16, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) released an Advice Memorandum from its Office of the General Counsel addressing the issue of whether an employer violated the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) by terminating a human resources employee based on its belief that she shared with coworkers confidential wage information she obtained through her position.

The memo concluded that the employer did not violate the NLRA because the employee was discharged based on its reasonable belief that she divulged confidential wage information to which she had access because of her position, but which were unrelated to her normal work activity.  The memo noted that employees are entitled to use for NLRA purposes information that comes to their attention in the normal course of their work, but they are not engaged in protected conduct “when they go outside their normal work activity to obtain an employer’s confidential information, even when they use it to support otherwise legitimate Section 7 activity.”

Additionally, the employee’s discussion of wages with coworkers did not constitute concerted protected activity because the discussions were not pursued for “mutual aid or protection.”  Rather, the purpose of the discussions was informational.