Judge Decides Employers Elect to Skip Union Notice Postings

The federal justice ruled last week that the NLRB had no authority to make most private businesses put up right-to-unionize posters.

April 18, 2012

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Adding to the confusion as to whether employers have to post information about workers€™ right to unionize, a federal judge ruled that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had no power to make most private companies to put such notices up, the New York Times reports. However, the ruling will not stop the NLRB from enforcing the mandate, scheduled to go into effect April 30.

Judge David C. Norton with the U.S. District Court in South Carolina said the NLRB did not make its case that the notices were necessary for the board to do its job. Norton also disagreed with the board€™s assertion that Congress had given the board power to make companies put up those notices.

Norton€™s ruling counters another federal district court judge€™s decision last month that the NLRB did have the authority to make businesses post such notices. Lawyers with the NLRB and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the major plaintiff in the South Carolina case, are considering whether Norton€™s decision meant the posting order would be void in South Carolina or the entire United States.

"We€™re quite pleased with the decision, and we hope the labor board will suspend the regulation across the country until this all gets sorted out," said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits for the chamber.

Legal experts envision an appeal of the South Carolina ruling in order to reconcile the differences between the two decisions. The labor board has not indicated if it will delay the April 30 deadline to force employers to put up the posters. In January, the NLRB said it wanted to push employers to give unions lists of worker contact information ahead of elections.

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