Federal contractors and subcontractors are required to inform employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector. See 29 CFR Part 471. The notice, prescribed in the Department of Labor's regulations, informs employees of Federal contractors and subcontractors of their rights under the NLRA to organize and bargain collectively with their employers and to engage in other protected concerted activity. Additionally, the notice provides examples of illegal conduct by employers and unions, and it provides contact information to the National Labor Relations Board (www.nlrb.gov), the agency responsible for enforcing the NLRA. Federal contractors and subcontractors are required to post the prescribed employee notice conspicuously in plants and offices where employees covered by the NLRA perform contract-related activity, including all places where notices to employees are customarily posted both physically and electronically.

Federal Government contracting departments and agencies must include provisions requiring contractors to post the prescribed notice in every Government contract, except collective bargaining agreements entered into by a Federal agency, contracts for purchases under the Simplified Acquisition Threshold, and in those cases where the Secretary exempts a contracting department or agency pursuant to the Executive Order. Government contractors must also include provisions requiring posting of the prescribed notice in all subcontracts.

Enforcement responsibilities for the notice requirements are shared by two Department of Labor agencies. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is responsible for investigation of complaints, compliance evaluations, and conciliation, and that agency will refer violations to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) for enforcement.  The sanctions, penalties, and remedies for noncompliance with the notice requirements include the suspension or cancellation of the contract and the debarring of Federal contractors from future Federal contracts.

The Department of Labor's regulations implement Executive Order (E.O.) 13496 signed by President Barack Obama on January 30, 2009 (74 FR 6107, February 4, 2009).  E.O. 13496 advances the Administration's goal of promoting economy and efficiency of Federal government procurement by ensuring that workers employed in the private sector and engaged in activity related to the performance of Federal government contracts are informed of their rights to form, join, or assist a union and bargain collectively with their employer. Knowledge of such basic statutory rights promotes stable labor-management relations, thus reducing costs to the Federal government.

For More Information:

Fact Sheet (HTML) (PDF)

Executive Order 13496 (HTML) (PDF)

Final Rule Implementing Executive Order 13496 (HTML) (PDF)

Obtaining Copies of the Notice of Employee Rights

Executive Order 13496 Notice of Employee Rights, in Adobe Reader (.pdf) format, can be downloaded from the link below. If you are not able to download the notice, or if you seek a hard copy of the notice, you can send a request to [email protected] or call (202) 693-0123. Contractors may also reproduce and use exact duplicate copies of the official notice.

• Notice of Employee Rights Under Federal Labor Laws - 11x17-inch one-page format (PDF)
• Notice of Employee Rights Under Federal Labor Laws - 11x8.5-inch two-page format (PDF)

To use one of these files as a poster for your place of employment, please follow these instructions:

The files are only available in PDF format. In order to view and/or print PDF documents you must have a PDF viewer (e.g., Adobe Acrobat Reader) available on your workstation. Click on the PDF link for one of the Notice of Employee Rights Under Federal Labor Laws posters above and wait for it to load into the viewer.

1. The size of the poster must be 11x17 inches or larger.
2. If you have a printer capable of printing to 11x17 inch paper, download the poster in the 11x17-inch one-page format. Be sure to select that paper size when printing.
3. If you do not have a printer that is capable of 11x17 prints, download the poster in the 11x8.5-inch two-page format. When printing, please ensure that the Page Scaling box reads: Scale to Printer Margins and you haved checked the Auto-Rotate and Center box. The poster will print two 11x8.5-inch landscape pages that must be taped or pasted together to form the 11x17 inch poster.

Questions About Executive Order 13496?

If you have questions about E.O. 13496 or its implementing regulations, call OLMS at (202) 693-0123 or send an email to [email protected].