NLRB bans anti-union captive-audience meetings
Washington DC - The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced new limitations on anti-union captive-audience meetings.
The NLRB issued a decision in Amazon.com Services LLC ruling that mandatory sessions aimed at discouraging unionization – known as captive-audience meetings – violate the National Labor Relations Act.
The NLRB noted, however, that employers may continue to hold meetings expressing their views on unionization so long as the topic is made clear in advance and attendance is voluntary and not recorded.
The case concerned Amazon's high-dollar anti-union campaign – including captive-audience meetings – at the company's Staten Island facility, which voted to unionize back in 2022.
"Labor Relations Act. Captive audience meetings – which give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or discharge – undermine this important goal," NLRB Chair Lauren McFerran said in a press release.
"Today’s decision better protects workers’ freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights under the Act, while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner."
Labor organizers react to NLRB ruling
The NLRB's ruling sparked mixed reactions from labor leaders and activists.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler stated: "Today’s NLRB decision is a huge win for workers. Captive audience meetings have no place in a fair workplace. This ruling restores the freedom workers deserve to make their own choices about union representation without fear or intimidation."
Labor organizer Jaz Brisack, who has played a critical role in the successful Starbucks Workers United movement, had a less optimistic take.
"So the boss can use captive audience meetings as straw polls to assess union support (and continue to segregate meetings to isolate union supporters from undecided workers). This is not a real win: coercion will just adapt," they wrote on X.
A new board may seek to overturn Wednesday's ruling after Donald Trump retakes the White House come January.
Cover photo: MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP