Illinois joins ranks of states banning captive audience meetings
Employers in Illinois soon will be prohibited from requiring employees to attend or participate in meetings intended to communicate an employer’s opinions on unions.
Published: August 9, 2024 | by Robert S. Teachout, Legal Editor at Brightmine
Employers in Illinois soon will be prohibited from requiring employees to attend or participate in meetings intended to communicate an employer’s opinions on unions, under the newly passed Worker Freedom of Speech Act.
“Captive audience” meetings — meetings employees are required to attend in which the employer states its position about why employees should vote “no” on unionization — are a key tool employers use to counter a union organizing effort. Such meetings are permitted under the National Labor Relations Act.
The Illinois law, effective January 1, 2025, prohibits employers from discharging, disciplining or otherwise penalizing or taking an adverse employment action an employee — or threatening to do so — for declining to attend or participate in a meeting or listen to communication from the employer conveying its opinion on political matters. Political matters include matters related to the decision to join or support a labor organization. The law mandates that any employee attendance be strictly voluntary.
Illinois is the latest in the trend of states passing laws prohibiting captive audience meetings. In the past 12 months, similar laws have been enacted by Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington. The legislation has followed calls by National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo to ban the practice as a violation of employees’ free speech rights.
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About the author
Robert S. Teachout, SHRM-SCP
Legal Editor, Brightmine
Robert Teachout has more than 30 years’ experience in legal publishing covering employment laws on the state and federal level. At Brightmine, he covers labor relations, performance appraisals and promotions, succession and workforce planning, HR professional development and employment contracts. He often writes on the intersection of compliance with HR strategy and practice.
Before joining Brightmine, Robert was a senior HR editor at Thompson Information Services, covering FMLA, ADA, EEO issues and federal and state leave laws. Prior to that he was the primary editor of Bloomberg BNA’s State Labor Laws binders and was the principal writer and editor of the State Wage Assignment and Garnishment Handbook. Robert also served as a union unit leader and shop steward in the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild of the Communications Workers of America. Actively involved in the HR profession, Robert is a member of SHRM at both the national and local levels, and gives back to the profession by serving as the communications vice president on the board of his local chapter.