Charlotte Garden

Charlotte Garden

Professor of Law
Gray, Plant, Mooty, Mooty & Bennett Professor of Law

Prof. Charlotte Garden Quoted in The Verge About Google’s Directive to Employees to Refrain from Discussing Antitrust Case

Professor Charlotte Garden, Julius E. Davis Professor of Law, was interviewed by The Verge about the Alphabet Workers Union filing a charge against Google with the National Labor Relations Board after Google management asked workers to “refrain” from talking about its ongoing Search antitrust case. The union charges that Google issued an “overly broad directive” on discussing the case to employees, according to a copy of the charge filed in August. On August 5th, just after U.S .District Court Judge Amit Mehta issued his decision finding Google to have an illegal monopoly, president of global affairs Kent Walker sent an email directing employees to “please refrain from commenting on this case, both internally and externally.” That could be a problem for Google if the NLRB concludes that Walker’s directive might chill protected concerted activity: actions by two or more employees together that are protected by labor law, like discussing working conditions. Prof. Garden said, “I could certainly imagine that there would be ways that the case would ultimately bear on working conditions.” She added that even though the email did not include an outright prohibition on speaking about the antitrust case, the NLRB could still find it to be a violation if it concludes it would likely chill employee speech.