Employers Struggle with Button Wearing Rules

Employers understandably have certain expectations of their employees while on the clock. When healthcare workers who are responsible for patient care wear buttons on their uniforms that arguably show a disregard for patient care while at work an employer may believe it is justified in banning the buttons during patient care. Nonetheless, as recently decided in American Medical Response West , 370 NLRB No. 58 (2020), in some circumstance employers must permit employees to wear certain buttons – even those that the employer believes are contradictory to the job the workers are paid to perform.