A top tactic that employers use to feed workers anti-union propaganda and threats could soon be outlawed, as the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) top legal counsel has released a new memo arguing for a return to a previous version of federal labor laws.
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo wrote in a memo released on Thursday that captive audience meetings “inherently involve an unlawful threat” against employees. She argued that the board should consider captive audience meetings — which she defined as also including coerced one-on-one meetings with managers — illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.
Abruzzo explained in the memo that captive anti-union meetings were once considered unlawful under federal labor laws, but are now perfectly legal. As a result, they are an incredibly common union-busting practice, and have been employed against recent organizing efforts by workers at Amazon, Starbucks, and more.
If the NLRB does declare captive anti-union meetings illegal, it would be a major boon for union organizers. Such meetings are incredibly effective at intimidating employees against supporting union efforts; a 2009 study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) using data from 1999 to 2003 found that when employers used captive audience meetings in anti-union campaigns, the union won their election only 47 percent of the time. When employers didn’t use them, that rate jumped to 73 percent.
Abruzzo said that any interpretation of the law which allows such meetings to take place is plainly wrong. Employers are exercising undue power over employees when they force them to attend meetings limiting their choices and actions in the workplace, she wrote.
This reasoning can apply to a wide range of meetings, she went on, adding that even when managers aren’t outright telling workers not to unionize, captive meetings can contain “threat[s] that employees will reasonably perceive even if it is not stated explicitly.”
“This license to coerce is an anomaly in labor law, inconsistent with the Act’s protection of employees’ free choice. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of employers’ speech rights,” Abruzzo said in a statement.
“I believe that the NLRB case precedent, which has tolerated such meetings, is at odds with fundamental labor-law principles, our statutory language, and our Congressional mandate,” she continued. “Because of this, I plan to urge the Board to reconsider such precedent and find mandatory meetings of this sort unlawful.”
Labor unions expressed support for Abruzzo’s memo. “The question of whether workers want a union should be the workers’ choice — not the employers’ — free of intimidation and interference. Captive audience meetings make that impossible,” said Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
While outlawing captive audience meetings could remove a large obstacle for many union organizers, it still may not be enough to equalize labor laws between employers and unions. A 2019 report from EPI found that 41.5 percent of employers were charged with unlawful actions during union campaigns, including moves like firing, harassing and surveilling workers.
Many employers purposely break the law in waging anti-union campaigns because punishments for labor law violations are incredibly lax and usually only amount to a slap on the wrist, especially for large companies.
Abruzzo hopes to level the playing field by addressing that, too. Though it’s up to Congress to pass sweeping labor law reforms, Abruzzo wants the labor board to reinstate the use of the Joy Silk doctrine, which would make it far easier for workers to unionize.
Under Joy Silk, employers would have to present legitimate reasons for not recognizing a union’s majority status among employees — meaning that employers would rarely be able to reject union recognition as long as most workers say they want a union.
Currently, employers are able to refuse to voluntarily recognize a union, forcing workers to undergo a union election. This buys employers time to hold captive meetings and otherwise discourage workers from unionizing.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.