Last year, we reported that Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 399, codified as California Labor Code section 1137, into law. This statute bans employers from holding captive audience meetings, which are mandatory employer-sponsored meetings that discuss religious or political matters—including unionization. California is one of at least 12 states that have passed captive audience laws at the urging of labor unions.Continue Reading Captive Audience Meetings: Prohibitions Remain on Hold
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) is sharpening its focus on “salting”—the practice of union organizers seeking employment with non-union employers to facilitate organizing campaigns. On July 24, 2025, the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel (“AGC”) William Cowen issued updated guidance that both clarifies and intensifies scrutiny around salting cases, altering how these matters will be investigated and litigated.[1] Employers and HR professionals should take note of this evolving landscape.Continue Reading Hold the Salt: Key Takeaways from the NLRB’s New Guidance on Union Salting
As discussed in our recent article, the introduction of SB 399 in California (approved and added as California Labor Code section 1137) sparked significant discussion and concern among California employers with union employees. The legislation, which became effective January 1, 2025, restricts so-called “captive audience meetings” by prohibiting employers from discharging or disciplining employees for refusing to attend mandatory employer-sponsored meetings. Many employers believe the law unnecessarily restrains their ability to communicate effectively and transparently with employees about important issues.Continue Reading Mandatory Captive Rules in Limbo for California Employers – 2 Federal Lawsuits Challenge SB 399 and Looming Issue Before the NLRB
On September 30, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB 399. Starting January 1, employers are officially banned from holding captive audience meetings—mandatory employer-sponsored meetings that discuss religious or political matters—which are a common and accepted defense against union organizing.Continue Reading Mandatory Captive Audience Meetings Are Banned in California in 2025
On August 15, 2024, the Appropriations Committee of the California State Assembly passed SB 399 by a vote of 10–3. The bill had passed the Senate in 2023 and has been with the Assembly since, waiting for action and a vote. Continue Reading California Assembly Committee Revives State’s Captive Audience Meeting Ban
On the heels of the National Labor Relations Board’s decision in McLaren Macomb, which invalidated most confidentiality and nondisparagement provisions in a variety of employment agreements (as we covered here and here), NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo (the “GC”) issued GC Memorandum 23-08 on May 30, 2023, announcing that, in her view, the proffer, maintenance, and enforcement of non-compete provisions violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”) except in very limited circumstances. This direct challenge to the lawfulness of commonly-used non-compete agreements mirrors the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) recent proposed rulemaking that would ban employers from imposing such agreements on their workers, and follows the Board’s memoranda of understanding with the FTC and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, both of which addressed the anticompetitive effects of non-compete agreements (covered here). Continue Reading NLRB General Counsel Announces Employee Non-Compete Agreements Violate the NLRA
On May 16, 2023, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo (the “GC”) issued revisions to her original July 6, 2020 memorandum of suggested manual election protocols for use during the COVID-19 pandemic, found here. The Board’s policies have generally favored manual elections, but that rule was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the onset of COVID-19, manual elections were halted completely and when elections resumed, they were conducted by mail-in ballot to ensure participant safety. As the pandemic wore on and more workers and employers alike learned how to safely return to the physical workplace, the Board issued its initial suggestions of how to safely conduct a manual election, signaling a desire to return to the status quo.Continue Reading Back to Normal, Almost – NLRB General Counsel Issues Updated Guidance on Suggested Manual Election Protocols and Push for Manual Elections by the NLRB
Last December, we addressed the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB or Board) new rules applicable to all NLRB-conducted elections. As then reported, these new rules partially reversed election rules implemented in 2014 and were designed to address many of the concerns raised by the Board’s 2014 rules changes. Specifically, the Trump Board has repeatedly expressed concern that the timeframe prior to a pre-election hearing was too truncated to allow the parties to adequately prepare for hearing and meet their many regulatory obligations. Originally scheduled to take effect April 16, 2020, implementation was later postponed and rescheduled to take effect on May 31.
Continue Reading The NLRB Reacts to Court’s Eleventh-Hour Partial Injunction of the Agency’s New Election Rules
From time to time, employers trigger labor disputes when they make unilateral changes in working conditions. Unions objecting to such changes often complain to the NLRB, claiming a change to be mandatory bargaining subjects and that the employer’s change without prior bargaining violates the NLRA’s Sections 8(a)(5) and (d).
Continue Reading Why, How and When Katz May “Trump” an Expired CBA When It Comes to Making Unilateral Changes — The Relationship Between MV Transportation and Raytheon Network
In Apogee Retail, 368 NLRB No. 144 (2019), the NLRB overruled the Obama Board’s decision in Banner Estrella Medical Center, 362 NLRB 1108 (2015) and held that investigative confidentiality rules that by their terms apply only to investigation participants and last only for the duration of an investigation are categorically lawful because the justifications for such rules are self evident and predictably outweigh the comparatively slight potential for such rules to interfere with the exercise of Section 7 rights. In this day and age of workplace harassment claims and internal investigations, Apogee was welcome news for employers because it ended the legal requirement that an employer prove that it had a particularized, legitimate and substantial business justification for compulsory confidentiality and because that said justification outweighed employee Section 7 rights in order for such prohibitions to be adjudged lawful.
Continue Reading Keep a Lid on It – The Trump NLRB Reaffirms Employer Ability to Enforce Investigative Confidentiality Rules
Setting clear and reasonable standards for taking access to an employer’s private property is high on the National Labor Relations Board’s agenda. Not only is the Board talking about issuing formal rules in this area, but the Agency is cranking out new access decisions left and right, the most recent being its recent decision in Kroger Limited Partnership I Mid-Atlantic, 368 NLRB No. 64, dated September 6, 2019 (Kroger). The issue presented there was whether the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act) requires an employer to grant nonemployee union representatives access to its premises to solicit the employer’s customers if it has also permitted other third parties to engage in civic, charitable or commercial solicitations there. The Board answered this question in the negative.
Continue Reading The NLRB Rules That Employers May Bar Union Representatives From Their Property Even Though They Have Allowed Other Third Parties To Engage In Civic, Charitable Or Commercial Solicitations There