Texas Federal Court Permanently Blocks Persuader Rule

As previously reported here, earlier this year a federal district court in Texas issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Labor (“DOL”) from enforcing the new Persuader Rule, which was to go into effect as of July 1, 2016. Last week, the court issued a ruling converting its preliminary injunction into a permanent one, which now imposes a nationwide ban on implementation of the new rule.

By way of a refresher, the new Persuader Rule, proposed in March earlier this year, sought to require employers to report highly detailed information regarding their “indirect persuader activities.” Such indirect activities potentially included attorneys advising employers on how to respond to employees attempting to unionize or what actions might discourage unionization. Several experts in the district court proceedings provided evidence that the new reporting requirements effectively restricted employers’ ability to obtain any advice concerning unionization-related issues. Prior to the new rule, employers were simply required to report “direct persuader activities,” which only included activity where there was direct contact with employees to persuade them regarding their rights to unionize.

To read the rest of this article, please visit the HRUSA blog at http://blog.hrusa.com/blog/texas-federal-court-permanently-blocks-persuader-rule/