The Rule is scheduled to be posted in the Federal Register by August 30, 2011, and will take effect 75 days after that, on November 14, 2011.
On August 25, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a press release announcing its final rule on Notification of Employee Rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The proposed rule had been pending since December of last year.
The final rule was issued by a 3-1 vote. The rule takes effect on November 14, 2011, 75 days from the date of its publication in the Federal Register, when the NLRB’s notice must be posted in the workplace.
The final rule requires employers that are subject to the NLRA to post and maintain the NLRB notice in conspicuous places, including all places where notices to employees are customarily posted, and to take reasonable steps to ensure that the notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material, or otherwise rendered unreadable.
Employers have the right to post their own notice as well. In the final rule, the NLRB addressed the issue of whether employers may post their own notices informing employees of the company’s position. It wrote:
One employer suggests that if the notice retains its current emphasis favoring union activity and disfavoring the freedom to refrain from such activity, employers will need to post their own notices that emphasize and elaborate on the right to refrain.
Finally, as discussed above, NLRA Section 8(c) protects employers’ right to express any “views, argument, or opinion” “if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.” The rule does not affect this right. Therefore, if an employer is concerned that employees will get the wrong impression, it may legally express its opinion regarding unionization as long as it does so in a noncoercive manner.
For the most part, the final rule is the same as the initial proposed rule in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), with only very minor changes.
The most significant change is that the final rule deletes the requirement that employers must distribute the notice via email, voice mail, text messaging or related electronic communications unless they customarily communicate with their employees in that manner.
Other significant changes include clarifications of the employee notice detailing employee rights protected by the NLRA and unlawful conduct on the part of unions; clarification of the rule’s requirements for posting notices in foreign languages; allowing employers to post notices in black and white as well as in color; and exemption of the U.S. Postal Service from coverage of the rule.
For more information, see Final Rule for Notification of Employee Rights.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.