More states ban Captive Audience meetings.

Hawaii's New ‘Captive Audience’ Law

Under current federal law, employers may legally require workers to attend meetings during working hours that concern the employer’s views on politics, religion and similar matters. Hawaii recently joined several states—including Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon—that have enacted laws restricting employers from requiring employees to attend such employer-sponsored meetings.

Hawaii’s Captive Audience Prohibition Act, Senate Bill 2715 (SB 2715), went into effect July 2. It expands Hawaii’s Unfair Labor Practices Law by prohibiting employers—acting individually or in concert with others—from discharging, disciplining, or otherwise penalizing or threatening any adverse employment action against an employee because the employee declines to:

• Attend or participate in an employer-sponsored meeting, or any portion of a meeting, which communicates the opinion of the employer about political matters; or
• Receive or listen to a communication from the employer that communicates the opinion of the employer about political matters.

SB 2715 defines “political matters” as “anything related to an attempt to influence a future vote by persons in an audience.” The law does not “limit the rights of an employer to conduct meetings or to engage in communications involving political matters as long as attendance by the employees is wholly voluntary.” SB 2715 broadly defines “employee” to include any individual:

• Employed in the domestic service of a family or person at the family's or person's home;
• Employed by the individual's parent or spouse;
• Employed in an executive or supervisory capacity;
• Employed by any employer employing less than two individuals; or
• Subject to the jurisdiction of the federal Railway Labor Act or the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as amended from time to time.

Additionally, similar laws passed in Connecticut and Minnesota are being challenged in federal court as violating employers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment as well as being pre-empted under the NLRA. Concerns about the legality of SB 2715 put employers in a difficult position as employers are forced to choose whether to comply or challenge the new law on constitutional grounds.

Hawaii's New ‘Captive Audience’ Law: What Employers Need to Know (shrm.org)

Commentary by: Raylea Stelmach

Edited by: Kim Moss – No changes

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EPSHRM provides content as a service to its readers and members. It does not offer legal advice, and cannot guarantee the accuracy or suitability of its content for a particular purpose.