By now we know that one of two federal district courts considering the issue has upheld the NLRB’s power to mandate most employers post Notice of Employee’s NLRB rights to form and join unions. While the NLRB is making employers educate employees about some rights under the NLRA, the required posting doesn’t go far enough in educating employees about their rights.  Employers can (and perhaps should) advise employees, through postings of the employer’s own, that employees have the right NOT to form unions and NOT to join unions.  These employer-crafted posters can explain to employees, through posting, the reasons why union formation is not in their interest.  (In fairness, the posting does say that employees have the right not to engage in any of the detailed activities, but its a mere passing reference and is not detailed like the rights in support of unionization).

Rather than relying on the NLRB’s one-sided posting in favor of unionization, which most employers will now be forced to post in April 2012, employers should consider preparing their own posters to provide the other side of the notice equation and educate employees that they are under no obligation to create or form unions; remind employees of the wages, privileges and benefits they already possess without the necessity of paying a portion of their wages to the union in the form of union dues; and educating employees about the disadvantages and consequences that union membership offers.

Before an employer posts an employer-generated notice, however, it should be carefully reviewed by the employer’s legal counsel because what can and cannot be said to employees about unions are subject to rules that are sometime counter intuitive.  If the NLRB would publish a rule requiring employers to give this kind of full and fair notice, I would call it the "Goose and Gander" rule.

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