The National Labor Relations Board has accused the American Civil Liberties Union of firing an employee to try and discourage other staff from speaking up about working conditions — an ironic case for an organization famously known for defending individual freedoms and speech.
According to a complaint filed with the NLRB and obtained by Bloomberg, the terminated employee had been complaining about wages, hours and working conditions from 2020 up until May 2022.
“The ACLU flatly disputes these allegations and remains confident on the merits of its case,” a spokesperson for the organization said Monday in a statement to Bloomberg.
The ACLU argued the worker was “terminated for just cause” and the case should be handled through the organization’s arbitration process, according to the filing.
Bloomberg said the fired staffer was represented by the union ACLU Staff United, which the ACLU voluntarily recognized in 2021.
The NLRB is a federal agency that protects the rights of employees to act together and address working conditions, with or without a union. In turn, they investigate any allegations of wrongdoing brought to them by workers or unions.
