The Federalist Publisher’s Tweet Violated Labor Law, NLRB Rules

Nov. 24, 2020, 6:50 PM

• Even if meant as joke, tweet was unlawful, board says
• Company pledges to challenge ruling in court

The publisher of conservative online magazine The Federalist unlawfully threatened workers when he said via Twitter that he’d send them “back to the salt mine” if they attempted to form a union, the National Labor Relations Board held.

“We find that employees would reasonably view the message as expressing an intent to take swift action against any employee who tried to unionize the Respondent,” the NLRB said in a ruling Tuesday. “In addition, the reference to sending that employee ‘back to the salt mine’ reasonably implied that the response would be adverse.”

The agency in recent years has policed high-profile executives’ anti-union language on social media, citing Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk for a tweet and reaching a settlement with Barstool Sports co-founder David Portnoy that required the deletion of offending tweets.

The decision upholds an administrative law judge’s ruling that FDRLST Media publisher Ben Domenech’s tweet violated federal labor law. The board ordered Domenech to delete the “salt mine” statement from his personal Twitter account.

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