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US Labor Board Bans Captive Audience Meetings to Ensure 'Truly Free' Worker Choice
"Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights," said the chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Nov 13, 2024
In a decision that advocates say will likely be reversed during the second administration of Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ruled that employers cannot force workers to attend anti-union speeches.
The NLRB's 3-1 decision in Amazon.com Services, LLCmeans that workers will no longer have to take part in so-called "captive audience meetings," which employers often use as a union-busting tool and a form of coercion. The agency explained that such meetings violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act "because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees."
"However, the board made 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 NLRB added.
NLRB Chairperson Lauren McFerran, a Democrat, said in a statement that "ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National 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," McFerran added. "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."
In April 2022, the NLRB's general counsel office issued a memo asserting that captive audience meetings are illegal. At least 11 states have banned such meetings. Other states are in various stages of considering or enacting bans or restrictions on them.
Workers' rights advocates hailed Wednesday's decision, although labor journalist Hamilton Nolan quipped on social media that employees should "enjoy this brief shining period before the Trump NLRB reverses this decision."
However, More Perfect Union producer Jordan Zakarin argued that Democrats can protect this "monumental win for labor" for "the next few years" if "they finally confirm" President Joe Biden's nomination of Joshua Ditelberg—a Republican lawyer who has represented companies including Amazon, Airbnb, and UnitedHealth—to fill the fifth NLRB seat.
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)—a Washington, D.C.-based, pro-union think tank—U.S. employers spend an estimated $433 million per year on union-busting consultants.
"This reality makes it harder for workers to fight for their collective bargaining rights because they do not know the extent of their companies' investments in union-busting, a figure that could empower them at the negotiating table when employers claim they can't afford to increase pay and benefits," EPI said last year.
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Unions Say Building Worker Power Is Only Way to Defeat Trump's Fascist Right
"No one—not Donald Trump or JD Vance, nor any one CEO—can stop solidarity," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. "Organized labor is the path forward."
Nov 07, 2024
The largest labor unions in the United States are ready for a fight.
That much was made clear within hours of Donald Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday's election, an outcome that will soon bring to power a former president who aggressively pursued anti-worker policies during his first four years in the White House despite posturing as an ally of rank-and-file union members.
For Shawn Fain, the fiery president of the United Auto Workers, the struggle for the nation's working class in the wake of Trump's victory is identical to the one it faced prior to the election: "unchecked corporate greed destroying our lives, our families, and our communities."
"It's the threat of companies like Stellantis, Mack Truck, and John Deere shipping jobs overseas to boost shareholder profits. It's the threat of corporate America telling the working class to sit down and shut up," said Fain, who led the UAW through a six-week strike last year that yielded historic contracts with the nation's three largest car manufacturers.
"We've said all along that no matter who is in the White House, our fight remains the same," Fain added. "The fight for a living wage, affordable healthcare, and time for our families continues. It's time for Washington, D.C. to put up or shut up, no matter the party, no matter the candidate. Will our government stand with the working class, or keep doing the bidding of the billionaires? That's the question we face today. And that's the question we'll face tomorrow. The answer lies with us. No matter who's in office."
"We've seen assaults on our fundamental rights before. In the days, months, and years ahead, labor's task will be to defend working people when it happens again."
While energized by recent victories, the U.S. labor movement is broadly in disrepair, battered by a decades-long corporate assault. Last year, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country's union membership rate was just 10%, down from 20.1% in 1983.
And union members were hardly unified behind one candidate in Tuesday's election:
Exit polling shows that members of union households backed Harris by a relatively narrow margin of 53% to Trump's 45%.
But organized labor, weakened and divided as it is, still represents "the most promising and powerful tool to turn this all around," journalist Hamilton Nolan wrote for In These Times on Wednesday.
In a separate piece ahead of Tuesday's election, Nolan argued that "unions are inherently progressive."
"Not because they endorse a particular political party, but because the nature of the work they do is about empowering the working class and increasing equality and enabling regular people to stand up effectively to the power of capital, of the rich, of corporations, of unrestrained capitalism," he wrote. "When you win a union and sign a union contract it is not just an act of improving your own life and the lives of your coworkers; it is a battle won in the class war. And the political war that you are stressed about right now is, at its heart, a class war."
Claude Cummings, president of the Communications Workers of America, affirmed that message in a statement following Tuesday's election, saying that "corporate CEOs are intent on dividing us against each other so they can drive down wages and cut corners on safety to boost profits for big investors."
"Now it is time to reunite around our shared values," said Cummings. "No matter who is in office, our goals are always the same—to use our collective power to protect our rights, to improve our working conditions, and to give everyone an opportunity to have a union voice on the job."
Want to build worker power against the billionaires and corporate CEOs? Form a union. https://t.co/OfgO2NOTVk
— CWA (@CWAUnion) November 7, 2024
In the second Trump administration, unions are likely to face a billionaire-shaped government hostile to organized labor's rights and aspirations for a more just and equitable society.
While no final decisions have been made, The Washington Postreported earlier this month that Trump sees former fast-food executive Andrew Puzder—an enemy of unions and opponent of raising the minimum wage—as a top contender for the labor secretary post. Trump selected Puzder for the role in his first White House term, but Puzder withdrew his nomination in the face of bipartisan backlash.
The Post also reported that Trump intends to fire National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo—a champion of workers—on day one and "reverse wins for unions under Biden," including "a 2023 landmark ruling that forces employers found using illegal tactics to fight labor organizing to recognize unions." The NLRB ruling has provided a boost to unionization efforts.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement Wednesday that the Project 2025 agenda crafted by Trump allies and members of his first administration "promises to dismantle labor unions because we are a pillar of democracy and a check on power."
Acknowledging that Trump's win represents "a blow for every worker who depends on our elected leaders to fight for our jobs, our unions, and our contracts," Shuler said that "we stand for solidarity—the kind that is built when working people stand together to take on the biggest, richest bosses and the most powerful extremist politicians."
"Most importantly, we know how to fight back when anyone comes after our freedoms," said Shuler. "No one—not Donald Trump or JD Vance, nor any one CEO—can stop solidarity. Organized labor is the path forward."
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president April Verrett echoed that sentiment.
"We are putting corporations, billionaires, and extremist politicians on notice—we see you, we know just what you're trying to do, and we won’t back down. We know what it's like to face down bullies," Verrett added. "We will not allow anyone to take away our fundamental rights and freedoms. Hear us: when you attack just one of us, you're attacking every worker who makes our communities, our economy, and our nation strong."
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Why Democrats Lose Even When Republicans Are So Endlessly Terrible
In large part the campaign reflected the direction the Democratic Party establishment has taken, away from working class issues since the advent of neoliberal policies in the 1970s and carried out by most Democratic Party presidents since.
Nov 07, 2024
Amid the postmortems and reckoning that will now follow the wreckage of Donald Trump’s return to “absolute” power, as authorized by the Supreme Court, there are a two notes in particular that deserve a deeper dive.
First. In Missouri, a state Trump won by 58 percent, voters also acted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and to require employers to provide paid sick leave to workers. Proposition A was backed by unions and workers’ advocacy groups, social justice and civil rights organizations, and even over 500 state business owners despite the opposition of the Chamber of Commerce, the big corporate lobby wing.
“We’ve shown the rest of the world, the rest of the country, that regardless of what’s going on outside of our state, we’re able to come together and win,” said Terrence Wise of Stand Up KC, a coalition of low wage workers. “We felt that we have the power as everyday Missourians to come together and make our lives better.”
In Nebraska, another red state won by Trump, voters also passed a paid sick leave measure, Initiative 436, by 75 percent. Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans and other supporters noted that 250,000 Nebraskans were working full-time without paid sick days, especially in restaurants and other service jobs, construction, manufacturing, warehousing, retail, educational support, and transportation.
“These are old school Democratic Party policy proposals that Republicans have actively voted against in DC, but are hugely popular. Harris barely campaigned on them—despite progressives begging her to. Voters were clearly looking for solutions to their economic angst and agreed with Democrats on these policies, even if not associating those policies with Harris and her party,” ABC News correspondent MaryAlice Parks said in a social media post.
Second. In the multitude of exit poll results, one particularly stands out—94 percent of registered Republicans voted for Trump, the exact same percentage he received in 2020. The heavy campaign focus on pulling away Republican voters from Trump turned out to be a pipe dream.
The old cliché “it’s the economy stupid,” triumphed again. It was the major issue for many Joe Biden voters in 2020 who Vice President Kamala Harris lost in 2024.
Much has been written and said about Latino voters, but the Washington Post assessment seems right: Seven in 10 Latino voters nationally rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” and a narrow majority supported Trump. Four in 10 Latino voters termed the economy their top issue, and those chose Trump by a 2-to-1 margin.
Another demographic that should cause concern are the youngest voters. Again from the Post analysis: Though voters under 30 supported Harris by 13 points, in 2020, Biden won that age group by a 24-point margin.
Some of those were certainly disaffected by the Biden/Harris administration’s disastrous support for Israel’s horrific war and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. But there are many indications that many more were discouraged by an economy of relentless high prices the past four years and by the difficulty in finding living-wage jobs.
The Biden administration passed important legislation to tackle inflation and high prices, and it made laudable efforts to reduce student and medical debt despite the unified Republican opposition and conservative courts. Yet, the pain of struggling families, including many young people across the country, persisted.
After Biden’s calamitous debate with Trump in late June, he unveiled an expansive progressive campaign platform on multiple issues influenced by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Squad members, the Progressive Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus. It included multiple proposals to end medical debt and other dramatic reforms.
“To win the election, the president … needs to … fight for a bold agenda that speaks to the needs of the vast majority of our people — the working families of this country, the people who have been left behind for far too long,” Sanders wrote in a New York Timesop-ed on July 13.
Harris embraced much of that agenda and she expanded it with innovative ideas to call for a national ban on corporate price gouging on grocery and other food costs, expanded child tax and new born credits, subsidies for new home buyers, and more.
She could have done more, such as aligning with proposed progressive reforms such as those passed by voters in Missouri, Nebraska and other states, and highlighting the vital work of Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan in attacking corporate abuses. Instead, much of the critical final weeks was focused by the campaign’s appeals to Republican voters and the emphasis on demonizing Trump.
In large part the campaign reflected the direction the Democratic Party establishment has taken, away from working class issues since the advent of neoliberal policies in the 1970s and carried out by most Democratic Party presidents since.
In a Guardian column after Trump’s victory in 2016, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich made trenchant observations about the Democratic Party shift, aptly headlined “Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more.”
Reich wrote:
What has happened in America should not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.
Recent economic indicators may be up, but those indicators don’t reflect the insecurity most Americans continue to feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience. Nor do the major indicators show the linkages many Americans see between wealth and power, stagnant or declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and the undermining of democracy by big money.
The Democratic party once represented the working class. But over the last three decades the party has been taken over by Washington-based fundraisers, bundlers, analysts, and pollsters who have focused instead on raising campaign money from corporate and Wall Street executives and getting votes from upper middle-class households in “swing” suburbs.
Democrats have occupied the White House for 16 of the last 24 years, and for four of those years had control of both houses of Congress. But in that time they failed to reverse the decline in working-class wages and economic security.
The power structure is shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. Perhaps it also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in enabling the presidency of Donald Trump.”
It's now 2024 and very soon it will be 2025. The working people of this country can't wait a moment longer for Democrats to learn the lesson progressives have been screaming for decades.
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