The most expensive thing on this brewery's menu? Retaliation.

Notch 8 Brewery's owner told a bartender he would not tolerate her "backdoor" conversations with coworkers. The NLRB just said those words are direct evidence of animus.

Rebecca Spitzer had been a beertender at the brewery for about seven weeks. She heard coworkers complaining about long hours and missed breaks, and told them they might be owed overtime and could contact the NLRB or the Department of Labor. Then she contacted the Department of Labor herself.

Two days later, the owner called her into his office, angrily said someone he trusted had told him what she was doing, and sent her home. That same day, the brewery posted on Facebook that it was hiring beertenders.

In defending against the unfair labor practice charge, the brewery claimed that she drank on the job, served beer from competing breweries, committed petty theft, and lacked an alcohol certificate. It also said she abandoned her job. The ALJ found the misconduct unproven and concluded that the brewery had unlawfully fired Spitzer because of her protected concerted activity.

The NLRB just affirmed that decision. Sending her home, posting her job, and cutting off her scheduling access would lead a prudent person to believe she'd been fired. The Board also rebuked the brewery's claims of misconduct. It never investigated them during Spitzer's employment and raised them for the first time only after the charge was filed. That's classic pretext, said the Board.

I have three key lessons for employers to take away from this case.

1. When an employee says pay or breaks look wrong, or you have a safety or some other workplace issue, you have a compliance question to answer. Fix the problem if there is one. Explain it if there isn't. Firing the messenger turns the question into a federal labor charge or a lawsuit.

2. Nothing here required a union. Employees talking about overtime and breaks is protected concerted activity, and one employee's call to a state agency can be a logical outgrowth of that.

3. If a union is sniffing around your workers, retaliation is the best organizing pitch you can hand it. The organizer's whole argument is that speaking up gets you punished unless someone has your back. Fire the person who raised a concern and you've proven the point. At Notch 8, coworkers followed the whole thing in group texts, and one wrote that firing a whistleblower "sounds kinda illegal." Your workforce reads the same signals.

Employee complaints are free advice. Acting on them costs little, and punishing them costs far more. You don't want the most expensive thing on your menu to be retaliation.