NLRB Overturns Long-Standing Precedent Regarding Captive-Audience Meetings

For over 70 years, employers have been able to hold meetings with employees regarding the impact of unionization on their employees’ ability to address issues individually with their employers. This was based on a 1948 decision, Babcock & Wilcox Co., that allowed management to hold captive-audience meetings during union organizing efforts.

On November 13, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reversed the Babcock & Wilcox Co. decision, by issuing a decision in Amazon.com Services, LLC, ruling, stating it is a violation of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act for employers to require employees under threat of discipline or discharge to attend meetings in which the employer expresses its views on unionization.

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) guarantees employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” as well as the right “to refrain from any or all such activities.”

In the Amazon.com Services, LLC ruling, the NLRB made it clear that an employer may lawfully hold meetings with workers to express its views on unionization so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept. The reasons for the decision were articulated by the Board, as follows:

• Such meetings interfere with an employee’s right under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act to freely decide whether, when, and how to participate in a debate concerning union representation or refrain from doing so.
• Captive audience meetings provide a mechanism for an employer to observe and surveil employees as it addresses the exercise of employees’ Section 7 rights.
• An employer’s ability to compel attendance at such meetings on pain of discipline or discharge lends a coercive character to the message regarding unionization that employees are forced to receive. The employer’s ability to require attendance at such meetings demonstrates the employer’s economic power over its employees and reasonably tends to inhibit them from acting freely in exercising their rights.

In another decision, on November 8, 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision in Siren Retail Corp d/b/a Starbucks, in which the Board ruled that employer statements about the effects of unionization on the relationship between workers and management will be deemed illegal unless they are “carefully phrased,” based on objective facts, and relate to consequences out of an employer’s control.

With a new administration in place, there are some predictions that this, among other NLRB legal issues, will be reviewed by the new General Counsel and revisited by the Board. In the meantime, employers should be mindful of these NLRB decisions, and exercise caution regarding mandatory employee meetings that may interfere with employee rights concerning collective bargaining.