Know Your Rights

Know Your Organizing Rights!

Unionizing is a legally protected right under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), and the company cannot retaliate against you for unionizing, whether by forming, joining or assisting a union. Doing so would be illegal.

You have the right to discuss working conditions, including pay, and to organize a union to negotiate with your employer over your terms and conditions of employment. 

  • This includes your right to distribute union literature, wear union buttons, t-shirts, or other insignia, solicit coworkers to sign union authorization cards, and discuss the union with coworkers. 
  • Supervisors and managers cannot spy on you (or make it appear that they are doing so), coercively question you, threaten you or bribe you regarding your union activity or the union activities of your co-workers. You can't be fired, disciplined, demoted, or penalized in any way for engaging in these activities.


Your employer may maintain and enforce non-discriminatory rules limiting solicitation and distribution.

  • Your employer cannot prohibit you from talking about or soliciting for a union during non-work time, such as before or after work or during break times; or from distributing union literature during non-work time, in non-work areas, such as parking lots or break rooms. 
  • Restrictions on your efforts to communicate with co-workers cannot be discriminatory. For example, your employer cannot prohibit you from talking about the union during working time or on work channels or using work devices if they are also permitting you to talk about other non-work-related matters during working time, or on said work channel or device.

For more information on your rights, see these resources: