Delaware has joined the growing group of states limiting mandatory workplace meetings concerning unionization. Signed Sept. 30, House Bill 84 adds Section 711B to Delaware’s employment law to prohibit so-called captive audience meetings. The law arrives at a particularly unsettled moment: Current federal labor law decisions restrict compulsory union-related meetings, while the National Labor Relations Board’s (Board) general counsel is seeking to reverse that precedent.
The statute makes it an unlawful employment practice to discharge, take adverse action against or threaten an employee for declining to attend an employer-sponsored meeting or to participate in, receive or listen to employer communications whose purpose is to convey the employer’s opinion on political or religious matters. The term “political matters” includes the decision to join or support a labor organization. Employees working during a covered meeting who choose not to attend must continue to be paid while the meeting is held. The law thus prohibits compelled listening without broadly restricting employers from expressing their views.
The measure permits communications required by law or necessary to perform job duties, along with those regarding specified expectations for educational, public, tax-exempt, religious and political organizations and legally required training. These exceptions are specific, and an employer should not assume that labeling a union-related meeting “...
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