--- title: Go Ahead and Scowl — Your Boss Can't Fire You description: Labor agency rules that it's illegal for an employer to fire a worker for not acting happy on the job. authors: - name: Martha C. White role: Writer url: https://money.com/author/martha-c-white/ education: BA, English, Princeton University at_money_since: 2015 articles: 350 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology published: '2016-05-11T16:19:29.000Z' modified: '2016-05-11T16:19:29.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - Happy - Labor Union - NLRB - positive thinking - pubdesk - T-Mobile - Workplace word_count: 205 canonical: https://money.com/happy-at-work-ruling/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Man Breaking Pencil](https://img.money.com/2016/05/gettyimages-6040-002343.jpg) *Man Breaking Pencil* If you dislike having to put on a happy face every day when you go to work, then don't do it — your company can't make you. That's the result of a recent National Labor Relations Board ruling over a clause in a T-Mobile company handbook requiring employees to uphold a "positive work environment." The Communications Workers of America (the same union that's on strike against Verizon over healthcare costs going up and jobs being outsourced), represents a relative [handful](http://www.fastcoexist.com/3059695/unhappy-at-work-its-illegal-for-your-boss-to-force-you-to-act-happy) of T-Mobile's 45,000 workers. The union complained to the NLRB that the company's happy-face mandate was unfair, and the Board agreed, ruling in the employees' favor. "We find that employees would reasonably construe the rule to restrict potentially controversial or contentious communications and discussions," it said in the [ruling](http://www.btlaborrelations.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/t-mobile.pdf). While this means you can channel [Grumpy Cat](https://twitter.com/realgrumpycat) to your heart's content, what's really at stake here is workers' ability to organize and be able to discuss things like poor working conditions or conflicts with management. If maintaining a "positive" attitude means employees can't gripe about their jobs, then an employer could use that rule as a de facto prohibition on discussions about organizing, which would invariably touch on bones of contention or topics of discontent. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/happy-at-work-ruling/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Work-Life Balance", "item": "https://money.com/work-life-balance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Go Ahead and Scowl — Your Boss Can't Fire You" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/happy-at-work-ruling/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/happy-at-work-ruling/", "name": "Go Ahead and Scowl — Your Boss Can't Fire You", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-05-11T16:19:29.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/happy-at-work-ruling/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/happy-at-work-ruling/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2016-05-11T16:19:29.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Go Ahead and Scowl — Your Boss Can't Fire You", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/05/gettyimages-6040-002343.jpg", "width": 4983, "height": 3438, "caption": "Man Breaking Pencil" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha C. 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