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Last month, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a rule requiring all employers to put up a poster in their workplaces that informs workers of their right to unionize. The rule was hailed by many as a victory for organized labor.

“The rule is a responsible and much-needed step,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. “Just as employers are required to notify their employees of their rights around health and safety, wages, and discrimination on the job, this rule gives clear information to employees about their rights under this fundamental labor law so that workers are better equipped to exercise and enforce them.”

But while some in organized labor praised the rule, the notorious union-busting firm Labor Relations Institute, Inc. began advertising plans on how companies could “effectively counter the NLRB one-sided posting requirements” and was quick to release a kit of similarly styled “counter-posters.” Whereas previously such anti-union posters were uncommon in the workplace unless a union-organizing drive was underway, the Labor Relations Institute saw an opening to use the new NLRB rule about workers' rights to create anti-union intimidation, advising businesses to use the “momentum and energy of your opponent against him.”

“As for the union busters, any pro-labor rule, regulation or policy is great business for them! They get to scare the crap out of employers, convincing them they need their services to stay union-free,” said Columbia University assistant professor Dorian Warren. “So this poster, which is no different from any other workplace or health and safety related postings in the workplace, is being used as a money-making scare tactic by these firms. It does prove our research correct about anti-union campaigns starting from the moment a worker is hired.”

Forthcoming research by Warren and Kate Bronfenbreener of Cornell University finds that “30 percent of serious violations against workers by employers occurred 30 days before the petition was filed and 47 percent of all serious allegations against employees occurred before the petition was filed,” making the anti-union poster kit emblematic of a recent trend by union busters to begin their busting before a union drive even starts.