On September 3, 2025, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation prohibiting employers from mandating employee participation in communications about the decision to join or support a labor organization or association. The measure expands New Jersey's existing restrictions on these "captive audience" meetings related to political and religious matters and joins several other states, including California, New York, Illinois, and Washington, that ban employers from requiring attendance at meetings about religious, political, or labor organization issues. New Jersey's law does not prohibit employers from conducting union avoidance meetings so long as such meetings are voluntary and employees are informed that they may refuse to attend a meeting without penalty.
New Jersey's prohibition is consistent with the Biden-era National Labor Relations Board decision in Amazon.com Services LLC,373 NLRB No. 136(Nov. 13, 2024), holding that employers may not require employees to attend meetings during work hours to listen to their employer's views about unions, unless certain safe harbor requirements are met. Until the Amazon decision, the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") had been interpreted to permit mandatory captive audience meetings concerning the employer's position on unionization.
The Board has lacked a quorum since January 2025, but, if recent senate nominations are confirmed, we expect to see reversals of many Biden-era union-friendly NLRB decisions including Amazon.com Services LLC.
And, we may see legal challenges to New Jersey's newly expanded prohibitions, as the captive audience laws of several other states have faced legal challenges, including claims that these laws are pre-empted by the National Labor Relations Act.
Ballard Spahr'sLabor & EmploymentGroup routinely assists employers in ensuring compliance with other state, federal, and local statutes and regulations and regularly assists clients in updating their policies and practices to be compliant with recent developments.
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