California Restaurant Association sues to challenge ban on mandatory ‘captive audience’ meetings

Business organizations are suing the state of California three months after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 399 into law, which banned employer retaliation against employees who refuse to attend mandatory meetings about religious or political matters.

The law is meant to protect the rights of employees trying to unionize, and to put a stop to mandatory “captive audience” meetings during which employers express their views, usually against the organization of a union.

The California law was signed into law shortly before the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision in November in a case involving Amazon, ruling that mandatory captive audience meetings were a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. The decision overruled a 1948 case, Babcock & Wilson Co., and nearly 80 years of legal labor precent.

The lawsuit, which was filed by the California Chamber of Commerce and California Restaurant Association, claiming that the California state law blocks businesses from exercising their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to talk to employees about political issues, including “the decision to join or support any labor organization.” According to the lawsuit, the California bill discriminates against employers’ viewpoints by “regulating the content of employers’ communications with their employees, and by chilling and prohibiting employer speech.”

“Employers have the right to express their views and opinions on many issues,” Jot Condie, president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, said in a statement. “SB 399 creates restrictions that are unworkable and the unintended consequences of this new law outweigh any perceived benefit.”  

However, according to the authors and supporters of Bill 399, the law is not a restriction on the free speech of employers, but rather on their ability to intimidate prospective union members during mandatory meetings held usually during work hours.

"We're not surprised, we anticipated there would be a lawsuit. I think they threatened it during the legislative process," Lorena Gonzalez, chief officer of the California Labor Federation, and sponsor of the legislation, told local NBC News affiliate, KCRA. “It’s well-settled law. It's not a restriction on employer speech; it's a restriction on their actions.”

Captive audience meetings have historically been seen by labor groups and unions as a union busting tactic and was part of the initial round of complaints mentioned by the first wave of unionized Starbucks stores in 2021 and 2022.

In one recent example of a captive audience meeting, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was recorded asking employees, “if you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you go work somewhere else?” This caught-on-tape moment was brought into question during a 2023 Senate hearing between Starbucks executives and the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, led by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) 

Labor advocates believe that the incoming presidential administration, led by President Donald Trump, could roll back many of the labor wins and changes made during the Biden Administration, including the ban on mandatory captive audience meetings.

Contact Joanna at [email protected]