The rule recently promulgated by the National Labor Relations Board requiring employers to post on bulletin boards and on their websites notices of employee rights partially survived a court challenge. The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC permitted the Board to require the posters, but vacated the portions of the rule creating a new unfair labor practice of failure to post the notice and providing that the statute of limitations for filing unfair labor practice charges is extended if the employer did not properly post the notice.NLRB-Notice-Posting-Decision 03-02-2012.pdf In the words of Judge Amy Berman Jackson:
The Court holds that the NLRA granted the Board broad rulemaking authority to implement the provisions of the Act, and that the Board did not exceed its statutory authority in promulgating Subpart A of the challenged rule – the notice posting provision. But it also holds that the provision of Subpart B that deems a failure to post to be an unfair labor practice, and the provision that tolls the statute of limitations in unfair labor practice actions against employers who have failed to post, do violate the NLRA and are invalid as a matter of law.
The decision is subject to appeal, of course, and the likelihood is that both sides will appeal certain aspects of the decision. At this point, it does appear that employers will be required to comply with the basic posting requirement as of April 30, 2012. It is not clear that there will be any effective penalty for failing to do so, however.