Proposal to end required religious and political workplace meetings in IL passes committee
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — Workers may be able to decline participating in political and religious meetings in Illinois workplaces without consequences with a bill advancing in the statehouse.
In 2022, the National Labor Relations Board announced a memorandum to advocate for ending penalties employees face when they opt out of attending meetings whose main purposes are discussing political and religious topics, often called “captive audience meetings.” The agency’s general counsel wanted to reverse a previous court ruling.
“This license to coerce is an anomaly in labor law, inconsistent with the Act’s protection of employees’ free choice,” NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said in a news release announcing the memorandum. “It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of employers’ speech rights.”
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Since the memorandum, the federal government hasn’t taken any action on implementing it. This left many states to try and create their own ban on mandatory employer meetings on religious and political issues. State Senator Robert Peters (D-Chicago) thinks Illinois should step in as he views the idea as a part of promoting the workplace.
“The employer-employee relationship should maintain a certain level of objectiveness,” Peters said. “The use of coercive pressures in mandatory meetings to discuss employer political or religious matters is an over-step of employer power.”
Under the proposed bill, no employer can punish an Illinois employee for skipping a meeting.
Union leaders also said it should be up to the employee to partake in any sort of expression or speech in their workplace.
“If they support a union, they shouldn’t have to sit through and listen to anti-union rhetoric of the bosses opinion,” Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea said. “We just think that people go to work to work, they don’t go to work to be indoctrinated.”
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Business groups like the National Federation of Independent Business, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and Illinois Manufacturing Association are opposed to the bill. President of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Lou Sandoval worries the language of the bill can be too vague.
“A lot of things could be construed as, you know, political conversations,” Sandoval said.
The bill passed the Senate Labor Committee along party lines earlier this week and can be debated on the Senate floor.
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