Dive Brief:

• The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and a coalition of other business groups filed a suit against the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to contest the agency’s expanded version of its "persuader rule," which obligates employers to reveal if they’ve consulted with outside sources in developing employee communication about unionization.
• The DOL’s previous rule only required disclosure if employer-hired outside consultants interacted directly with employees.
• In a separate lawsuit filed after the ABC suit, the National Association of Home Builders, National Federation of Independent Business and other groups challenged the DOL's "persuader rule" as well.

Dive Insight:

According to the ABC group's lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that this widening of the rule is a violation of an employer’s First and Fifth Amendment rights and is written with the intention of making union organizing a simpler process, according to the Washington Business Journal.

The rule’s formal name is the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, Interpretation of the "Advice" Exemption, and it changes the DOL’s definition of what is considered advice for purposes of public reporting, according to the ABC.

"DOL’s persuader rule is a clear attempt to chill employers’ First Amendment rights by placing onerous restrictions on their ability to receive advice and discuss the potential pros and cons of unionization with their employees," ABC President and CEO Michael Bellaman said in a statement. "The rule will have a particularly disparate impact on small businesses that do not employ in-house legal counsel and carries serious repercussions including possible jail time."

Proponents of the new rule, however, say it allows employees and others to be kept up-to-date on employer activities during attempts at unionization. "It takes great courage for working people to come together to form a union," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the Business Journal. "Working men and women deserve to know who their employer is hiring and exactly how much they are spending to discourage workers from forming a union."

The ABC is a proponent of the "merit shop philosophy," which is says is based on free enterprise and free market principles. The philosophy supports the concept that employees and employers have the right to determine wages and working conditions as they choose, within the law, and that all branches of government should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, awarding contracts based solely on merit to the lowest responsible bidder, regardless of labor affiliation.