California has joined the ranks of states barring employers from requiring employees to attend meetings intended to communicate the employer’s opinions on unions. Signing S.B. 399 into law, Gov. Gavin Newsom has made California the largest state to prohibit so-called “captive audience” meetings.
The California Worker Freedom From Employer Intimidation Act, effective January 1, 2025, prohibits employers from discharging, disciplining or otherwise penalizing or taking an adverse employment action against an employee — or threatening to do so — for declining to attend or participate in a meeting or to listen to communication from the employer conveying its opinion on political matters. Political matters are defined as matters relating to elections for political office, political parties, legislation, regulation, and the decision to join or support any political party or political or labor organization.
Unlike such laws in other states, the California law requires an employer to continue to pay an employee who is working at the time of a captive audience meeting and elects not to attend.
An employer that violates the law is subject to a civil penalty of $500 per employee for each violation. The Labor Commissioner may enforce the law, or an employee who has suffered a violation of may bring a civil action in a court for damages caused by that adverse action, including punitive damages.
The law does not prohibit communication with employees that are required by law or that are necessary for employees to perform their jobs.
Similar captive audience laws have been enacted by Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington in the past year. The legislation has followed calls by National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo to ban the practice as a violation of employees’ free speech rights. Such meetings are permitted under the National Labor Relations Act.
