NLRB Bans Captive Audience Meetings

On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision in Amazon.com Services LLC, ruling that an employer violates the National Labor Relations Act by requiring employees under threat of discipline or discharge to attend meetings in which the employer expresses its views on unionization. Overruling Babcock & Wilcox Co., the Board explained that such meetings—commonly known as captive-audience meetings—violate Section 8(a)(1) of the Act because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights.

"Today, the NLRB again demonstrated its commitment to working people with the decision to ban captive audience meetings, a coercive tool bosses regularly use to gain an unfair advantage before union elections," said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. "As part of well-funded and aggressive anti-union campaigns—regularly involving threats of discipline, site closure, wage and job cuts, and threatening immigrant workers with deportation—employers force employees to listen to anti-union speeches, often multiple times, preventing employees from asking questions or even politely leaving the meeting. These coercive meetings are well-known union-busting tools, and the practice has no place in America’s workplaces or in our democracy. Thanks to the NLRB, that ends today." Read more about the decision here and in HuffPo.