Guardsmark Overruled.

The NLRB's controversial decision in 2005 to allow an employer ban against off-duty socializing (a death knell for unionization campaigns) has been thrown out in federal court.

From the American Rights at Work Email:

Workers' Rights Watch: Eye on the NLRB - February 5, 2007

The American pastime of happy hour appeared to be doomed when in July 2005, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a dangerous precedent-setting decision to allow employers to ban “off-duty fraternizing” among co-workers. In our outrage we publicized the ruling, which eventually sent shockwaves far beyond the labor law community. Professors, journalists, bloggers, privacy and workers’ rights advocates, lawyers, and workers themselves could all agree that the Republican majority of the Board went too far in its decision severely weakening the rights of free speech and association, and violating basic standards of privacy for America's workers.

Yet this ‘Big Brother’ ruling was just overturned by the DC Circuit Court, which ruled that an employer's ban on "fraternizing" was illegal because employees would construe it as a ban of union or concerted activity—and not just socializing—outside of work hours.*

While we should all meet up after work to celebrate this decision, it's a sad day when the when a higher court has to save workers' rights from destruction from the agency created to protect them.