NLRB Notice-Posting Rule Dies, Labor Challenges Remain

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 (Act) to display a sizable poster about employees' rights under the Act. In an article authored for Law360, Faegre Baker Daniels partner Stuart Buttrick explained that from the start, the rule was met with resistance from employers.

Buttrick said that some employers viewed the mandatory poster as 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 by several employer-led groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace.

As a result of these legal challenges, two federal Courts of Appeals held that the NLRB's poster rule was impermissible. Although the rule is dead for now, Buttrick said that it is possible that in 2014 the NLRB will reconsider its poster regulation and reissue a rule that has a better chance of being judicially upheld.