While labor law posters won’t exactly complement your décor, they serve an important purpose. Every business in the US is required to post legal notices with minimum wage information, safety guidelines, and other workplace rules and regulations. Besides the fact that these posters are required by law, they also ensure workers know their rights and offer protection and structure for the employer as well.
Read on to see how often you need to update your posters and what type of posters may be required for your specific industry.
What is labor law poster compliance?
Labor law posters are required to be displayed by every United States business that has employees. However, your state laws, business size, and industry will all be factors in exactly which posters you need. For example, private employers with fewer than 50 employees are not covered by FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) and therefore do not need to display that particular labor law poster.
In general, posters will fall into three categories: federal regulations, state regulations, and OSHA regulations.
OSHA compliance
For those not familiar with OSHA, it stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration and it is a division of the United States Department of Labor. It was created in 1970 to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for all workers by setting standards and providing the appropriate training, education, and assistance to enforce them.
The best way to check your compliance for all workplace posters is on the U.S. Department of Labor website page where workplace posters and applicable laws are described at length. This page helps you see what types of businesses need to display which types of posters, and what the citation or penalty will be if the poster is not displayed.
Check to see if your business needs additional workplace posters
If you’re still not sure what posters your business needs to display, the FirstStep Poster Advisor tool from the U.S. Department of Labor will guide you through.
Should you download and print your labor law posters or buy them?
While you can download free copies of labor law posters to print yourself, you’ll want to take a minute to consider the real cost.
Some posters are required to be printed on specific sizes and even colors of paper. Researching these specifications will be a time-consuming task on its own, and then you’ll have to factor in your ink and paper costs as well. You’d also want to laminate them after printing them for both aesthetics and durability, which would incur additional costs.
You may decide it’s more cost-effective (and time-saving) to buy them. At Quill, we carry a large selection of labor law posters, including ComplyRight poster sets which are designed to satisfy federal and state law posting requirements.
Do labor law posters need to be updated every year?
Let’s close with the most important question: How often do you need to update the labor law posters for your business?
You might think having new ones ready to go on January 1st is the safest way to go, but that’s not always the case. Laws can change at any time throughout the year. You don’t want to replace a poster that’s not outdated yet just for the law to change a few months later.
One way to stay ahead of changes is to sign up for alerts from the U.S. Department of Labor. Additionally, some posters include a QR code to scan and check the latest updates to see if the poster is still compliant, which can really come in handy.
We hope this guide has helped answer all your labor law poster questions. Keep up with more business resources like this on the Quill Blog.