Last year, Governor Newsom signed SB 399, which effective January 1 of this year, prohibited private and public employers in California from subjecting, or threatening to subject, an employee “to discharge, discrimination, retaliation, or any other adverse action because the employee declines to attend an employer-sponsored meeting or affirmatively declines to participate in, receive, or listen to any communications with the employer or its agents or representatives, the purpose of which is to communicate the employer’s opinion about religious or political matters” including communications related to unionization. SB 399 enacted Labor Code 1137 in an attempt to ban captive audience meetings by California employers and the statute allowed the law to be enforced by the California Labor Commissioner or by private court action.
I provided a detailed description of the law, dubbed “The California Worker Freedom from Employer Intimidation Act” last September CLICK HERE.
Yesterday, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Cal Chamber, Judge Daniel Calabretta of the Eastern District of California in Sacramento granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of SB 399/California Labor Code 1137 on the grounds that it is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act under both Machinists and Garmon preemption doctrines, and that the law is also an unconstitutional attempt to regulate employer speech in violation of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. A copy of...
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