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A captive audience meeting is a mandatory meeting during working hours, organized by an employer with the purpose of discouraging employees from organizing or joining a labor union. [1] [2] It is considered a union-busting tactic. [3] [4] Critics allege that captive audience meetings are used to intimidate workers and spread misinformation; [5] [6] employees can be fired for failing to participate in the meeting or for asking questions. [7] In the United States, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) broadly permits captive audience meetings but does not allow them to be held in the final 24 hours prior to a union election. [1] [7] [8] Employers defend the practice as protected free speech; critics view the practice as an infringement on workers' rights not to listen. [1] [9] [10]
Captive audience meetings are held in about 90% of labor elections; [11] union win rates are inversely correlated with the number of captive audience meetings held. [1]
In February 2021, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act ("PRO Act") was proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Among other things, the PRO Act would make captive audience meetings illegal as an "unfair labor practice". [5]
Several US states have laws that either ban captive audience meetings outright, or prohibit employers from penalizing workers in any way for skipping such meetings. These include Connecticut, [12] Hawaii, [13] Illinois, [14] Maine, [15] Minnesota, [16] New York, [17] Oregon, [12] and Washington. [18]
J. Warren Madden, the NLRB's first chair had issued rulings which required employers to remain neutral during union organizing campaigns and elections. [19] The Supreme Court disagreed, however, and said in NLRB v. Virginia Electric & Power Co. , 314 US 469 (1941), that employers could express their opinion about unions and union organizing efforts so long as that speech was not coercive. [20] The NLRB subsequently held employer speech was not coercive unless blatantly so or part of a broad pattern of coercive conduct. [21] : 104
But captive audience meetings, a majority of the board felt, were different. A captive audience meeting occurs when an employer requires employees to meet on company time and listen to anti-union speech. After NLRB v. Virginia Electric & Power Co., the NLRB continued to issue rulings that held that captive audience meetings were a per se violation of the NLRA. [22] [23] [24]
Sections of the Taft–Hartley Act were designed to overturn these rulings. In November 1946, voters elected Republican majorities in the Congressional House and Senate. These Republicans were outraged by the NLRB's captive audience rulings. [25] When Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, Section 8(c) specifically allowed captive audience meetings so long as the employer made no threat of reprisal, threat of force, or promised any benefits during the meeting. [26]
During the tenure of chair Paul M. Herzog, the NLRB nevertheless continued to issue a series of rulings which held that unions should be granted equal time whenever an employer held a captive audience meeting. [27] [28] [21] : 105, 331 In Babcock & Wilcox , 77 NLRB 577 (1948), the Board held that unions were permitted to equal time during captive audience meetings. [29] [30] These rulings became known as the Bonwit Teller doctrine, after the name of the first of the post-Taft-Hartley Act captive audience rulings.
Guy Otto Farmer publicly stated his opposition to the Bonwit Teller rulings during the confirmation process. [31] In December 1953, Farmer convinced Democratic appointee Ivar Peterson to join Farmer and Rodgers in deciding Livingston Shirt Corp., [32] which overturned Bonwit Teller. [33] [34] Although Peterson agreed with the outcome of the decision, his rationale for reaching the verdict was on much narrower legal grounds. [21] : 106 Farmer did not, however, find the employer's right to hold captive audience meetings absolute. In Peerless Plywood Co. [35] Farmer, Rodgers, and Peterson agreed that employers may not hold captive audience meetings within 24 hours of a union representation election. [30] : 137 Two years later, in Economic Machinery Co., Farmer led a unanimous board in holding that one-on-one conversations between the employer and employee about the union is inherently coercive. [36]
In April 2022, Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel of the NLRB, issued a memorandum calling for the board to find captive audience meetings unlawful. [4] [37] [10]
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Central to the act was a ban on company unions. The act was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed by the 74th United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of President Harry S. Truman, becoming law on June 23, 1947.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States that enforces U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, the NLRB has the authority to supervise elections for labor union representation and to investigate and remedy unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of protected concerted activity.
The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, is a US labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers.
Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or weaken the power of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace.
Card check, also called majority sign-up, is a method for employees to organize into a labor union in which a majority of employees in a bargaining unit sign authorization forms, or "cards", stating they wish to be represented by the union. Since the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) became law in 1935, card check has been an alternative to the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) election process. Card check and election are both overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. The difference is that with card sign-up, employees sign authorization cards stating they want a union, the cards are submitted to the NLRB and if more than 50% of the employees submitted cards, the NLRB requires the employer to recognize the union. The NLRA election process is an additional step with the NLRB conducting a secret ballot election after authorization cards are submitted. In both cases the employer never sees the authorization cards or any information that would disclose how individual employees voted.
The Employee Free Choice Act is the name for several legislative bills on US labor law which have been proposed and sometimes introduced into one or both chambers of the U.S. Congress.
The Blue Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace is a legal treatise written by Charles J. Morris which analyzes collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute governing most private sector labor relations in the United States. Published in 2005 by Cornell University Press, the text claims that the NLRA guarantees that employees under that Act have the right to bargain collectively through minority unions—but only on a members-only basis—in workplaces where there is not an established majority union, notwithstanding that the present practice and general understanding of the law is that only majority-union employees are entitled to engage in collective bargaining on an exclusivity basis. Contracts resulting from such minority-union bargaining would apply to union members only, not to other employees.
Inflatable rats, Union rats, or Scabby rats, are giant inflatables in the shape of cartoon rats, commonly used in the United States by protesting or striking trade unions. They serve as a sign of opposition against employers or nonunion contractors, and are intended to call public attention to companies employing nonunion labor.
NLRB v. Truck Drivers Local 449 , 353 U.S. 87 (1957), is an 8-0 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that a temporary lockout by a multi-employer bargaining group threatened by a whipsaw strike was lawful under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act.
NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333 (1938), is a United States labor law case of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that workers who strike remain employees for the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The Court granted the relief sought by the National Labor Relations Board, which sought to have the workers reinstated by the employer. However, the decision is much better known today for its obiter dicta in which the Court said that an employer may hire strikebreakers and is not bound to discharge any of them if or when the strike ends.
Salting is a labor union tactic involving the act of getting a job at a specific workplace with the intent of organizing a union. A person so employed is called a "salt".
The history of union busting in the United States dates back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved from farms to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks. Children and women worked in factories and generally received lower pay than men. The government did little to limit these conditions. Labor movements in the industrialized world developed and lobbied for better rights and safer conditions. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the early years of the battleground between unions and management were adversarial and often identified with aggressive hostility. Contemporary opposition to trade unions known as union busting started in the 1940s, and continues to present challenges to the labor movement. Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe the activities that may be undertaken by employers, their proxies, workers and in certain instances states and governments usually triggered by events such as picketing, card check, worker organizing, and strike actions. Labor legislation has changed the nature of union busting, as well as the organizing tactics that labor organizations commonly use.
Paul M. Herzog was an American lawyer, educator, civil servant, and university administrator. He was chairman of the United States National Labor Relations Board from 1945 to 1953.
Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that, in a union security agreement, unions are authorized by statute to collect from non-members only those fees and dues necessary to perform its duties as a collective bargaining representative. The rights identified by the Court in Communications Workers of America v. Beck have since come to be known as "Beck rights", and defining what Beck rights are and how a union must fulfill its duties regarding them is an active area of modern United States labor law.
Joseph Warren Madden was an American lawyer, judge, civil servant, and educator. He served as a judge of the United States Court of Claims and was the first Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. He received the Medal of Freedom in 1947.
Guy Otto Farmer was an American lawyer and civil servant. He was Chairman of the United States National Labor Relations Board from July 1953 to August 1955. After leaving government service, he represented the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, the collective bargaining arm of the bituminous coal mining industry in the United States.
The Richard L. TrumkaProtecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, is a proposed United States law that would amend previous labor laws such as the National Labor Relations Act for the purpose of expanding "various labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace.” The measure would prevent employers from holding mandatory meetings for the purpose of counteracting labor organization and would strengthen the legal right of employees to join a labor union. The bill would also permit labor unions to encourage secondary strikes. The PRO Act would weaken "right-to-work" laws, which exist in 27 U.S. states. It would allow the National Labor Relations Board to fine employers for violations of labor law, and would provide compensation to employees involved in such cases. It is named after Richard Trumka, who was elected president of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009, and served in that office until his death in August 5, 2021.
Jennifer Ann Abruzzo is an American attorney and government official who serves as General Counsel at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). She previously was Special Counsel for Strategic Initiatives for Communications Workers of America (CWA), the largest media and communications union in the United States. She had previously worked for the NLRB for over 20 years in a number of positions, including Deputy General Counsel and Acting General Counsel.
NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., Inc., 395 U.S. 575 (1969) was a unanimous United States Supreme Court case clarifying the application of the National Labor Relations Act after the Taft-Hartley Amendments, particularly the application of union authorization cards.