## Facts

- Lechmere, Inc. operated a retail store in a Connecticut shopping plaza with a jointly owned parking lot.
- A union sought to organize approximately 200 Lechmere employees and, after limited response to a newspaper advertisement, nonemployee organizers entered the parking lot to place handbills on cars used mostly by employees.
- Lechmere enforced a no-solicitation/no-distribution policy and required the nonemployee organizers to leave its property.
- The organizers then distributed handbills and picketed from an adjacent public grassy strip and also attempted to contact employees by telephone and mail.
- The union filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging Lechmere violated NLRA § 8(a)(1) by excluding nonemployee organizers and thereby interfering with employees’ § 7 organizational rights.
- An ALJ found an unfair labor practice; the NLRB affirmed using a three-factor balancing test; the court of appeals enforced the Board’s order.

## Issues

1. Whether NLRA § 8(a)(1) requires an employer to allow nonemployee union organizers onto its private property to communicate with employees about unionization.
2. Whether an employer commits an unfair labor practice by excluding nonemployee organizers when employees are reachable through reasonable alternative, non-trespassory means.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and held Lechmere did not commit an unfair labor practice by barring nonemployee organizers from its parking lot.
- The Court reaffirmed the general rule that employers may exclude nonemployee union organizers from private property.
- The Court limited compelled access to a narrow exception when employees are beyond the reach of reasonable efforts to communicate with them.
- The Court rejected the NLRB’s broader balancing approach as inconsistent with the governing statutory interpretation.
- On the record, employees were not inaccessible because organizers could use the public strip and could contact employees through mail, telephone, and other off-premises methods.

## Legal Principles

- NLRA § 7 confers organizational rights on employees, not on unions or their nonemployee organizers; any access right for nonemployees depends on what is required to protect employees’ § 7 rights.
- Under the controlling framework, an employer generally may exclude nonemployee organizers from its property; compelled access is permitted only when employees are genuinely inaccessible through reasonable, non-trespassory communication.
- The relevant inquiry is whether reasonable alternative means of reaching employees exist, not whether the alternatives are the most effective.
- The NLRB may not use an open-ended balancing test to grant nonemployee access to employer property absent satisfaction of the inaccessibility exception.

## Conclusion

The Court held that an employer may lawfully bar nonemployee union organizers from its private property unless employees are otherwise beyond reasonable reach, and it disapproved agency balancing that expands access without a showing of genuine inaccessibility.


Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB, 502 U.S. 527 (1992)