NLRB Ruling Says Captive Audience Meetings Are Illegal
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled it is illegal for organizations to require their employees to attend so-called “captive audience” meetings at which an employer expresses its views about labor union participation. Specifically, the NLRB said mandating employees’ presence at such meetings violates federal labor law protections that allow workers to freely choose whether, when, and how to participate in a debate about union representation, including refraining from doing so.
The decision overturns an NLRB ruling from a 1948 case and follows an earlier decision to overrule a standard set in 1985 that had allowed employers to tell their employees that unionization would harm worker-manager relationships, as long as they did not use threats to do so.
As a result of this most recent ruling, going forward employers may hold meetings to share their views on unions only if they alert workers to the subject in advance, make it voluntary to attend with no consequences for missing. Under the ruling, employers also may not take attendance at such meetings. Read more at this link.
The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), which the Metals Service Center Institute is a member of, condemned the ruling because NLRB chose to abandon a precedent that has stood for more than 75 years without first seeking input from the public. “The impact of this decision will be immense, and the Board’s failure to obtain public comment is shocking and inexcusable,” said CDW Chair Kristen Swearingen in a statement.