ABC April 17 celebrated a victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked implementation of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) “employee rights” notice posting rule, which was scheduled to go into effect April 30. Under the rule, employers would have been required to display a poster in their workplace that contained a biased and incomplete list of employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act. 

The injunction was granted in response to a request by the ABC-led Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW). The group is appealing an unsatisfactory March 2 decision by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia that the NLRB has the authority to mandate the notice posting itself, but cannot impose an up-front, blanket penalty policy for failure to post. The injunction will remain in place until a decision is issued in the CDW appeal, which likely will not be until November 2012 or later. 

“For the last several months, ABC has vigorously fought NLRB’s politically motivated policies that threaten to paralyze the construction industry in order to benefit the special interests of politically powerful unions,” stated ABC Vice President of Federal Affairs Geoff Burr. “The NLRB’s notice posting rule is a perfect example of how the pro-union board has abandoned its role as a neutral enforcer and arbiter of labor law.” 

The appeals court decision to the block the rule’s implementation came on the heels of another favorable decision from the U.S. District Court of South Carolina, which ruled on April 13 that the NLRB does not have the statutory authority to require business owners to post this notice. 

For more information on the NLRB poster rule and on the court decisions, visit www.abc.org/NLRBposter.