Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a new regulation requiring all private sector employers to post a notice advising employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The new regulation becomes effective on November 14, 2011. The required notice, entitled “Employee Rights under the National Labor Relations Act” will be available on the NLRB website, www.nlrb.gov, on November 1, 2011. The notice must be posted in the workplace in a conspicuous location. In addition to posting the notice in the physical workplace, employers who maintain their policies and procedures on an internet or intranet site also must post the notice on the respective internet or intranet site. Further, if more than 20% of the employer’s employees speak a language other than English and are not proficient in English, the employer also must post the required notice in the other language spoken by those employees.
The notice itself advises employees of a laundry list of rights under the NLRA including:
♦ The right to unionize;
♦ The right to bargain collectively;
♦ The right to discuss wages, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment with co-workers and labor organizations;
♦ The right to strike or picket; and
♦ The right to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
The notice also advises employees of what employers are prohibited from doing under the National Labor Relations Act, including:
♦ Retaliating against employees for exercising rights under the NLRA;
♦ Asking employees if they support the union or about union activity;
♦ Prohibiting employees from talking about unions or soliciting on behalf of unions during non-working time; and
♦ Threatening to close down the workplace if the employees unionize.
The NLRB’s stated purpose of this rule is to increase the knowledge of the NLRA among employees to better enable employees to exercise those rights.