In November 2024, the Biden NLRB disarmed employers of the “most important weapon” in their anti-union arsenals: the captive audience meeting. Held in the workplace during paid work hours, captive audience meetings are “captive” because employers require attendance — and acquiescence — at pain of discipline or discharge. Until last year, if an employee refused to attend a meeting, tried to leave, expressed disagreement with management’s views, or even dared to ask a question, federal labor law entitled their employer to take disciplinary action, up to and including firing. It’s why 85 percent of anti-union campaigns used the captive audience tactic.
It’s no surprise, then, that the NLRB’s ban on captive audience meetings generated substantial opprobrium from the business community, a high-stakes lawsuit, and quick action by the NLRB’s new Acting General Counsel (who rescinded a Biden-era memo arguing for the ban). In turn, these actions catalyzed state bans, designed to backstop the NLRB’s anticipated about-face. Those state bans have faced court challenges, too.
At the heart of those legal challenges are employers’ free speech rights. Much turns on whether bans target employers’ conduct (i.e., the discipline and firings employers impose on workers who don’t participate in captive audience meetings) or employers’ speech (i.e., what employers tell employees in those meetings). If the bans just regulate conduct, they’re permissible. If they regulate speech too, they violate...
The Top 25 Most Influential lawyer dissects policing, policy gaps and digital evidence failures Wrongful accusations in sexual assault and domestic violence cases have become what criminal defence ...