The National Labor Relations Board has abandoned the administration’s attempts to force businesses to post pro-union notices in workplaces.
Two federal appeals courts struck down an NLRB rule that would have forced employers to put up the signs. The NLRB had until Thursday, Jan. 2, to appeal the cases to the Supreme Court, but quietly allowed the deadline to pass.
A NLRB spokesman said the agency was not prepared to comment on the matter.
Critics of the posters celebrated the NLRB’s decision.
The "unanimous voice of the judiciary has forced the Obama Labor Board to back down," said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation.
"By promulgating this sweeping new requirement, the NLRB clearly overstepped its statutory authority in a heavy-handed attempt to force more workers into forced unionism," Mix said.
The notices rejected by the federal courts were weighted toward pro-union organizing, as opposed to traditional worker safety notices, critics said.
The Associated Builders and Contractors and several other non-union employers blasted the NLRB list as a "biased and incomplete" because it failed to inform employees of their right to opt out of union dues and other protections against union leadership.
"The NLRB’s rule would have required almost every job provider in America to post biased, one-sided notices about workers’ rights. Under the rule, ‘mom and pop’ shops, small businesses, larger companies—even some religiously-affiliated organizations—would have been forced to comply," Mix said.
A D.C. Circuit court ruled that the new poster was an infringement on employers’ free speech rights and a second court ruled that the NLRB overreached in its authority to issue the poster. The NLRB unsuccessfully appealed those rulings to higher circuits in August.