Late last year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) promulgated a new rule that required all private employers to post a notice informing employees of their rights under the NLRB rules. NLRB is the board that oversees organized labor and management labor relations (i.e. unions). The poster, in English and Spanish is mandated at 11” x 17” in size should be posted where your other labor posters are located.

The fate of this poster and posting requirement has been on again off again since it was first proposed. First, the poster is not required for agricultural employers. At first we thought this may get cotton gins out from the requirement but for the purposes of the NLRB, cotton gins are not agriculture. Next came a court challenge to the general posting requirement in DC. In that case, the judge said the posting mandate was in fact legit but the delay meant the date for implementation would not be until April 30. We were about to notify everyone of this requirement when we got news that another court challenge where the judge threw out the rule completely.

The US District Court for South Carolina threw the rule out in its entirety saying that there wasn’t statutory authority for the NLRB to take any of the action that promulgated this rule and posting requirement. He ruled for summary judgment for the US and SC Chambers of Commerce.

So…where does that put us today? Good question. The first court challenge (the DC District Court’s decision) struck down parts of the rule that gave us the posting requirement. The NLRB is appealing the ruling on those provisions to the US Circuit Court in DC. They could rule in the next two weeks (by April 30) but that’s not a certainty. The NLRB could request a stay on the SC ruling until the DC Circuit has a chance to rule. The NLRB could delay implementation yet again. And there are several other options.

For a detailed description of the saga, please go to here for Fisher and Phillips article on the mess or to here for the Littler Law Firms’ discussion. Both give you a good picture of where things may go.

Finally if you would like to see the poster and requirements, the NLRB has put up a page on their site. Here

We will let you know if things change but for now there is no new NLRB Posting until more courts have a chance to rule on the situation.

DSF