Seyfarth Shaw (03/02/12) John Toner; Joshua Ditelberg

In National Association of Manufacturers v. National Labor Relations Board, et al., U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on March 2 granted in part and denied in part the plaintiff association’s request to block the NLRB’s new notice posting rule, which is to go into effect April 30, 2012. Judge Jackson ruled that the NLRB did not exceed its authority under the National Labor Relations Act by requiring all employers subject to the act to post a notice advising employees of their rights under the act. However, she also ruled that the portion of the rule which would deem an employer’s failure to post the NLRB notice to be an unfair labor practice, and the provision that delays the statute of limitations in the case of unfair labor practice charges where the employer failed to post the notice, do in fact violate the act and are therefore invalid as a matter of law.

The District Court’s decision may be appealed, and there is a separate lawsuit challenging the notice posting rule pending in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina.