Frequently Asked Questions - Poster

All employers that fall under the Board's jurisdiction, other than the U.S. Postal Service, must post the notice of employee rights.

The Board has statutory jurisdiction over private sector employers whose activity in interstate commerce exceeds a minimal level. Over the years, it has established standards for asserting jurisdiction, which are described below. As a practical matter, the Board’s jurisdiction is very broad and covers the great majority of non-government employers with a workplace in the United States, including non-profits, employee-owned businesses, labor organizations, non-union businesses, and businesses in states with “Right to Work” laws.

Retailers
Employers in retail businesses fall under the Board’s jurisdiction if they have a gross annual volume of business of $500,000 or more. This includes employers in the amusement industry, apartment houses and condominiums, cemeteries, casinos, home construction, hotels and motels, restaurants and private clubs, and taxi services. Shopping centers and office buildings have a lower threshold of $100,000 per year.

Non-retailers
For non-retailers, jurisdiction is based on the amount of goods sold or services provided by the employer out of state (“outflow”) or purchased by the employer from out of state (“inflow”). Outflow or inflow can be direct or ‘indirect’, passing through a third company such as a supplier. The Board takes jurisdiction when annual inflow or outflow is at least $50,000.

Special categories
Channels of interstate commerce:  For businesses providing essential links in the transportation of goods or passengers, including trucking and shipping companies, private bus companies, warehouses and packing houses, the minimum is $50,000 in gross annual volume.

Health care and child care institutions: Hospitals, medical and dental offices, social services organizations, child care centers and residential care centers with a gross annual volume of at least $250,000 are under NLRB jurisdiction; for nursing homes and visiting nurses associations, the minimum is $100,000.

Law firms and legal service organizations: The minimum is $250,000 in gross annual volume.

Cultural and educational centers: For private and non-profit colleges, universities, and other schools, art museums and symphony orchestras, the annual minimum is $1 million.

Federal contractors: Federal contractors are required by the Department of Labor to post a similar Notice of Employee Rights under the NLRA. There is no need to post an additional poster; the DOL poster will satisfy the NLRB’s requirement.

Religious organizations: The Board will not assert jurisdiction over employees of a religious organization who are involved in effectuating the religious purpose of the organization, such as teachers in church-operated schools. The Board has asserted jurisdiction over employees who work in the operations of a religious organization that did not have a religious character, such as a health care institution.  

Indian tribes:  The Board asserts jurisdiction over the commercial enterprises owned and operated by Indian tribes, even if they are located on a tribal reservation.  But the Board does not assert jurisdiction over tribal enterprises that carry out traditional tribal or governmental functions.

The following employers are excluded from NLRB jurisdiction by statute or regulation:

• Federal, state and local governments, including public schools, libraries, and parks, Federal Reserve banks, and wholly-owned government corporations.
• Employers who employ only agricultural laborers, those engaged in farming operations that cultivate or harvest agricultural commodities or prepare commodities for delivery. 
• Employers subject to the Railway Labor Act, such as interstate railroads and airlines.

Employers with remote worksites inside the United States should post the Notice at those locations to ensure that all employees are notified of their rights. However, employers who dispatch employees to worksites owned and operated by a client are not responsible for notice-posting there.

The Notice should be posted in conspicuous places, where other workplace rights notices and company notices concerning personnel rules or policies are customarily posted. Reasonable steps should be taken to ensure the Notice is not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material, or otherwise rendered unreadable.

Employers who typically post personnel rules and policies on an internet or intranet site should also post the Notice of NLRA rights there, in addition to a physical posting. Employers are not required to distribute the posting by email, Twitter or other electronic means.

Yes. The Notice must be posted in English and in another language if at least 20% of employees are not proficient in English and speak the other language. The Board will provide translations of the Notice, and of the required link to the Board’s website, in the appropriate languages. If a translation of the appropriate language is not available, the employer will not be liable for non-compliance.

If a workforce includes two or more groups, each constituting at least 20 percent of the workforce, who speak different languages, the employer must post the Notice in the language spoken by the larger group, and then may either post the Notice in the language(s) spoken by the other group(s) or, at the employer’s option, distribute copies of the Notice to those employees in their language(s). If such an employer is also required to post the Notice electronically, it must do so in each of those languages.

No, the rule has no record-keeping or reporting requirements.

The NLRB does not audit workplaces or initiate enforcement actions on its own, nor does it have the ability to assess fines or penalties.

A failure to post the Notice would need to be brought to the Board’s attention in the form of an unfair labor practice charge by employees, unions, or other persons. In most cases, the Board expects that employers who fail to post the Notice were unaware of the rule and will comply when requested by a Board agent. In such cases, the unfair labor practice case will typically be closed without further action. The Board also may extend the 6-month statute of limitations for filing a charge involving other unfair labor practice allegations against the employer.

If an employer knowingly and willfully fails to post the Notice, that failure may be considered evidence of unlawful motive in an unfair labor practice case involving other alleged violations of the NLRA.

The easiest way to obtain the Notice is to download it from www.nlrb.gov/posterand print it on a single 11-by-17 paper or two 8-by-11 papers taped together. Free copies of the Notice are available on request from any NLRB regional office. Finally, employers can satisfy the rule by purchasing and posting a set of workplace posters from a commercial supplier.

The posting of NLRA rights was proposed by the Board in a federal rulemaking procedure in December 2010. The proposal was posted in the Federal Register and public comments were accepted for a 60-day period. The Board received nearly 7,000 comments. A detailed description of the comments and the Board’s response to them, including modifications to the rule, is available here. The final rule was posted in the Federal Register on August 30, and was set to take effect 75 days later, on November 14, 2011. The effective date was later changed to April 30, 2012. Click here for the text of the final rule.

If you have a question not on this list, you may send a question by email.