PDF《Vol. 76》

Vol.

76 Tuesday, No.

168 August 30,

2011 Part II National Labor Relations Board

29 CFR Part

104 Notification of Employee Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act;

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54006 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No.

168 / Tuesday, August 30,

2011 / Rules and Regulations

1 Labor-management relations in the railroad and airline industries are governed by the Railway Labor Act,

45 U.S.C.

151 et seq.

2 The original NLRA did not include restrictions on the actions of unions;

those were added in the Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act of 1947,

29 U.S.C.

141 et seq., Title I.

3 The Board cited three law review articles in which the authors contended that American workers are largely unaware of their NLRA rights, that the Board can take action to vindicate those rights, and that this lack of knowledge stands in the way of employees'

effectively exercising their rights. Peter D. DeChiara, '

'

The Right to Know: An Argument for Informing Employees of Their Rights under the National Labor Relations Act,'

'

32 Harv. J. on Legis. 431, 433C434 (1995);

Charles J. Morris, '

'

Renaissance at the NLRB―Opportunity and Prospect for Non-Legislative Procedural Reform at the Labor Board,'

'

23 Stetson L. Rev. 101,

107 (1993);

Morris, '

'

NLRB Protection in the Nonunion Workplace: A Glimpse at a General Theory of Section

7 Conduct,'

'

137 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1673, 1675C

1676 (1989).

75 FR at 80411.

4 Id.

5 The Board requires that employees be notified of their NLRA rights in only the following narrow circumstances: (1) For the three working days before a Board-conducted representation election, the employer is required to post a notice of election including a brief description of employee rights;

see

29 CFR 103.20. (2) When an employer or a union has been found to have violated employee rights under the NLRA, it is required to post a notice containing a brief summary of those rights. (3) Before a union may seek to obligate newly hired nonmember employees to pay dues and fees under a union-security clause, it must inform them of their right under NLRB v. General Motors,

373 U.S.

734 (1963), and Communications Workers v. Beck,

487 U.S.

735 (1988), to be or remain nonmembers and that nonmembers have the right to object to paying for union activities unrelated to the union'

s duties as the bargaining representative and to obtain a reduction in dues and fees of such activities. California Saw &

Knife Works,

320 NLRB 224,

233 (1995), enfd. sub nom. Machinists v. NLRB,

133 F.3d

1012 (7th Cir. 1998), cert. denied sub nom. Strang v. NLRB,

525 U.S.

813 (1998). The same notice must also be given to union members if they did not receive it when they entered the bargaining unit. Paperworkers Local

1033 (Weyerhaeuser Paper Co.),

320 NLRB 349,

350 (1995), rev'

d. on other grounds sub nom. Buzenius v. NLRB,

124 F.3d

788 (6th Cir. 1997), vacated sub nom. United Paperworkers Intern. Union v. Buzenius,

525 U.S.

979 (1998). (4) When an employer voluntarily recognizes a union, the Board has required that the employer must post a notice informing employees: (i) That the employer recognized the union on the basis of evidence that it was designated by a majority of the unit employees;