National Labor Relations Board Decides Not to Seek Supreme Court Review of Cases Invalidating Notice Posting Requirement

According to an NLRB press release issued on January 6, 2014, the NLRB will not petition the Supreme Court to challenge two U.S. Courts of Appeals decisions that invalidated the Board’s Notice Posting Rule.  That rule was intended to ensure that workers were educated about their rights under the National Labor Relations Act by requiring most private sector employees to put up posters listing those rights, similar to the ubiquitous posters that explain individual rights under other federal statutes such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. It has faced intense opposition from business interests since the rule was initially proposed.

By not challenging the Courts of Appeals decisions in the Supreme Court, the NLRB has abandoned the rule, which was originally supposed to go into effect in November 2011.  The Board will rely upon voluntary compliance with the posting rule suggestion (the proposed notice is still available on the NLRB website), its website and mobile app, and a “national outreach program to educate the American public about the statute.”

Do not expect an Obamacare-like crash of the NLRB website by employers rushing to download the poster and voluntarily tack it up on their bulletin boards.  It would be interesting, however, to see unions and even enterprising non-unionized employees take the initiative to tack up the Board’s poster on union or employee bulletin boards in their own workplaces.

See our previous post on this issue here and here.