Big Lots workers may have federal rights to discuss workplace issues

Big Lots workers who compare wages, hours, schedules, or safety concerns with one another are generally exercising rights protected by federal labor law. The National Labor Relations Board says employees generally have the right to discuss other working conditions, too, and to act together about those issues.

Big Lots filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September 2024, announced on December 19, 2024 that it would begin going-out-of-business sales at all locations, and later faced layoff and closure waves that pushed workers to compare notes, question changes, and try to protect one another’s hours and safety.

What Section 7 protects

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects employees’ rights to engage in concerted activity for mutual aid or protection. That means you do not need a union card to have rights under federal labor law. If you and your coworkers talk about pay, ask for safer freight procedures, challenge a new attendance rule, or press management about staffing, that can fall inside the NLRA even when no union is involved.

Protected activity can include employees talking with co-workers or management about workplace issues. When people speak together about shared problems, the law often treats that as collective action.

Big Lots examples that can be protected

The difference between a private gripe and protected concerted activity usually comes down to whether the issue is shared and whether you are acting together. At Big Lots, that can look like ordinary store-floor conversation that becomes collective action around a specific problem.

A few common examples:

• You and a coworker compare schedules and realize the closing shift keeps getting stacked with the same few people. If you bring that pattern to management together, you are raising a working-conditions issue.

• A group of associates questions a new attendance rule because it makes it harder to balance school, caregiving, or a second job. Concerns about hours and scheduling are core working-condition issues.

• Several workers raise safety concerns about freight procedures, such as how stock is moved, whether equipment is used correctly, or whether the backroom is being pushed too fast during a busy stretch. Safety is explicitly within protected workplace discussion.

• Employees talk together about pay or benefits and ask for a change. Conversations about wages and benefits are protected when they are part of concerted action.

• Workers jointly ask for more staffing after repeated shifts leave one cashier, one receiver, or one closing team carrying too much. If the concern is about how the store is staffed and how that affects the job, that is a collective complaint about working conditions.

The protected speech does not have to be formal. A group text, a break-room conversation, a shared complaint to a manager, or a coordinated request for changes can all matter if the issue is workplace conditions and the action is collective.

What can fall outside protection

Not every complaint is protected. A purely personal issue that is not tied to working conditions can fall outside the NLRA, especially if nobody else is involved. If the problem is only about your own schedule swap, your own discipline, or a dispute that has nothing to do with broader wages, hours, safety, or workplace rules, the legal protection is weaker.

If you are speaking only for yourself about a private problem, management may treat it as an individual matter. If you are speaking with coworkers about a shared issue, you may have federal protection even if the conversation makes management uncomfortable.

How to protect yourself when you speak up

The safest habit is to document the collective action as it happens. If you are raising a concern with coworkers, write down who was involved, what the issue was, and when management responded. If discipline follows a protected conversation, those notes can make the difference between a vague claim and a record you can stand behind.

Keep the focus on the workplace problem, not personalities. The strongest examples under the NLRA are usually the ones tied to concrete conditions: too few people on the floor, unpredictable schedules, unsafe freight handling, or a new rule that changes how the store runs. If others are affected too, say so clearly.

A simple checklist helps:

• note the names of the coworkers involved
• save texts, group messages, or schedules that show the shared concern
• write down the date you raised the issue and how management answered
• if discipline follows, record exactly what happened and who was present

Those records can show whether you acted together and whether management’s response crossed the line into interference with Section 7 rights.

Why this is especially relevant at Big Lots

Big Lots’ bankruptcy and store-closure shake-up made workplace-rights questions more immediate. On December 20, 2024, the company planned to lay off up to 555 employees as it prepared going-out-of-business sales. By January 16, 2025, additional store closures totaled nearly 300, and on February 14, 2025, about 200 stores had been turned over to Variety Wholesalers while more than 600 were for sale.

When a retailer is being cut back, transferred, or rewritten store by store, the pressure lands on everyday issues first: who gets hours, who handles freight, who closes, who works under the heat in the backroom, and who has enough staff to keep the store moving. Those are the kinds of questions that can become protected concerted activity when workers raise them together.

An NLRB Region 6 newsletter from September 2012 marked the launch of the agency’s protected-activity webpage, and the Board issued decisions on August 31, 2023 that lowered the bar for what counts as concerted and protected activity.