## Facts

- The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) adopted a regulation requiring employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to post an official notice informing employees of their rights under the Act.
- The notice summarized employees’ § 7 rights, including to organize, bargain collectively, and engage in concerted activities.
- The NLRB relied on NLRA § 6, which authorizes the Board to issue rules “necessary to carry out the provisions” of the Act.
- The Chamber of Commerce of the United States and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce challenged the rule, arguing the NLRA did not authorize a generally applicable, affirmative posting duty.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the Chambers and set aside the rule as beyond the NLRB’s statutory authority.
- The NLRB appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether NLRA § 6 authorizes the NLRB to require all NLRA-covered employers to post a notice advising employees of their rights under the Act.
2. Whether the NLRA’s structure limits the NLRB to primarily reactive functions triggered by unfair labor practice charges or representation petitions, making a proactive notice-posting mandate unauthorized.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment invalidating the notice-posting rule.
- The court held the NLRB exceeded its statutory authority because § 6 rulemaking must be connected to carrying out the Board’s statutorily assigned functions.
- The court concluded the NLRA does not grant the NLRB power to impose a freestanding, universally applicable duty on employers to post notices independent of any charge or petition.

## Legal Principles

- An agency’s general rulemaking clause authorizing rules “necessary to carry out” a statute does not, by itself, confer new substantive regulatory power beyond the agency’s enumerated statutory functions.
- The NLRB’s authority under the NLRA is tied to roles that arise from specific statutory triggers (such as unfair labor practice charges and representation petitions), not broad, proactive regulation of all covered employers.
- Statutory purpose and policy rationales cannot substitute for a concrete statutory grant of authority to impose new obligations on regulated parties.
- The absence of an express notice-posting mandate in the NLRA weighs against inferring such authority from general rulemaking language, particularly where Congress has expressly required postings in other statutory schemes.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit held that the NLRA does not authorize the NLRB to require employers generally to post notices of employee rights, and it invalidated the Board’s notice-posting rule as exceeding the agency’s delegated authority under § 6.


Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. NLRB, 721 F.3d 152 (4th Cir. 2013)