During the first faculty union contract bargaining sessions The University’s bargaining team of Sharon Rudnick, Tim Gleason, and Doug Blandy spent hours haranguing the faculty union team about a “civility” policy – by which they meant a prohibition on faculty criticisms of the inept Mike Gottfredson and his Johnson Hall administration.

The AAUP’s Mike Mauer and our own Dave Cecil called out the administration team for attempting to use the civility buzzword to stifle criticism, and the UO Senate passed an Academic Freedom Policy which explicitly protects the right to criticize the administration – not just for faculty, but for all UO employees and students.

And now the National Labor Relations Board has come out against mandatory civility too, in a ruling against T-Mobile:

1. Since at least January 16, 2014, the Respondent promulgated and has maintained a provision in its employee handbook entitled “Workplace Conduct” that provides in pertinent part:

[The Respondent] expects all employees to behave in a professional manner that promotes efficiency, productivity, and cooperation. Employees are expected to maintain a positive work environment by communicating in a manner that is conducive to effective working relationships with internal and external customers, clients, co-workers, and management.

The General Counsel contended that the undefined phrases “positive work environment” and “communicating in a manner that is conducive to effective working relationships” are ambiguous and vague, and would reasonably chill employees in the exercise of Section 7 rights. The judge disagreed and recommended dismissal of the allegation. We reverse.

We find that employees would reasonably construe the rule to restrict potentially controversial or contentious communications and discussions, including those protected by Section 7 of the Act, out of fear that the Respondent would deem them to be inconsistent with a “positive work environment.”

And just in case this ruling is not perfectly fucking clear, the NLRB then went on to require T-Mobile to prominently post this poster, reminding their workers that they do in fact still live in a free country (emphasis added):