NLRB Poster Rule is Dead
January 08, 2014
Over two years ago, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a final rule that would have required all private employers subject to the National Labor Relations Act to display a poster about employees' rights under the Act. The NLRB announced on January 6, 2014 that it would not seek Supreme Court review of two Circuit Court of Appeals decisions invalidating the agency's Notice Posting Rule. The NLRB had until Thursday, January 2, to appeal the cases to the Supreme Court, but allowed the deadline to pass.
Initially, this posting rule was met with much resistance from employers, in part because of its controversial content that some believed was pro-union as the poster failed to mention employees' rights to decertify a union, not to pay union dues in right-to-work states and to object to dues unrelated to representation. The proposed regulation was quickly challenged in court.
As a result of these legal challenges, two federal Courts of Appeals (the Fourth Circuit and the District of Columbia) held that the NLRB's poster rule was impermissible. One court (the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia) found that the rule violated employers' free speech rights under the First Amendment, and the other (the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit) found that the NLRB did not have the authority under the Act to issue the rule.
The NLRB poster remains available on the agency website and it may be viewed, displayed and disseminated voluntarily. However, businesses that have already displayed this controversial poster have been free to remove it as a result of the legal appeals...and now permanently.
If you have questions about this change, please contact Phil Richards, Director of Client Services, at phil@sescomgt.com or 423-764-4127.
