The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday handed down a 7-2 decision in Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Brown, U.S., No. 06-939, striking down a California law prohibiting employers that receive state funds from using them "to assist, promote, or deter union organizing."  The Court's ruling holds that state laws, such as California's A.B. 1889, are preempted by the National Labor Relations Act.

Citing the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, Justice Stevens  wrote for the majority that Section 8(c), which was added to the NLRA in 1947 by the Taft-Hartley Act, protects noncoercive speech by employers and unions from regulation by the National Labor Relations Board and manifests a "congressional intent to encourage free debate on issues dividing labor and management."

Whether or not they receive state funding, employers must continue follow federal preemption issues such as this, as a number of states are currently entertaining similar "Worker Freedom" bills.  Some of these are designed to impact an employer's ability to speak at all, like the California bill, and are presumably unconstitutional as a result of this new ruling.  Others, however, aim to eliminate the "captive audience" speech by employers -- mandatory meetings at which the employer might speak on any number of workplace issues, including union organizing.  Even after Brown, that issue may not be fully resolved.