Oct 7, 2011

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NLRB Postpones Poster Requirement

The National Labor Relations Board has moved the date its new posters must be up in most businesses to January 31, 2012.

According to the official press release, the NLRB’s reason is that there’s confusion from business owners about which companies are under the Board’s jurisdiction, and they want to spend some time educating the business community about the issue.

Eric Meyer over at the Employer Handbook calls bulls— on the PR explanation for the delay, and I completely agree. Eric notes that the Board made quite a big deal out of the FAQ they released with the final regulations, so there’s not that much educating left to do. Also, figuring out if you’re covered by the NLRB’s jurisdiction is not that hard. Seriously, we do hard things here; this is not one of them…1.

I think most employer-side2 attorneys would tell you the real reason for the postponement has something to do with the stream of lawsuits that have been filed challenging not just the poster requirement, but the NLRB’s ability to enact regulations at all.

The new date will pose some logistical problems, though. Many employers buy new laminated breakroom posters around the new year, and the companies that make them have been busy redesigning the 2012 models to fit the NLRB info in. Now that the Board’s regulation is up-in-the-air, poster companies (and the employers that buy those posters) are going to have to decide whether to print them with the info or not.

At any rate, no need to hang the new poster next month like we expected.

1. A fun aside: I first heard that phrase from a kindergarten teacher, who said it to a student asking for help gluing paper onto other paper. It comes in handy a lot. Feel free to steal it. [↩]
2. and probably employee-side [↩]