Posters for Workers (and the People Who Employ Them)

“Some of the statutes and regulations enforced by agencies within the [U.S.] Department of Labor require that notices be posted in the workplace. The Department provides electronic copies of the required posters. Some of the Department of Labor’s posters are available in languages other than English. They are also available in electronic form.”

More are not very beautiful and seem designed by bureaucrats, but they must be posted in a conspicuous place as a notice to employees and a warning to employers. The posters implicitly call on employees to monitor the complience of their employers, and some even provide phone numbers and contact info. They are designed in a no-nonsense institutional non-style, that speaks of authority and bureaucratic indifference.

Are you a confused employer? The Department of Labor even has an online an electronic walkthrough of the poster requirements and laws.

Many states have their own posters and requirements, too. The posters generally fall into the following areas: minimum wage and age, job safety and health, information about emergency family medical leave, worker’s compensation, and polygraph and equal opportunity protection.

None of the posters I found address your federally protected right to organize and form a union in your workplace — though South Carolina, a “right-to-work” state, describes this right in their big labor law poster.

Below are a sampling of posters produced by the states.

In addition to their statutory language version, Oklahoma provides a plain language version (shown), complete with color photos and clear subject headings.

Tennessee’s poster for employees offers a loud warning for those would forget their rights.

Child labor law == happy kids. Just like in the clip art of this Kansas poster.

Hawaii’s posted is clear and direct, with a splash of color.

Because the information on this South Carolina poster is so organized, I don’t think the poster was consciously designed to be obscure. But what employee would read such a dense poster in the kitchen?

Alabama calls it like it is.

There are also companies who market compliance, selling laminated, redesigned, all-in-one versions of the posters.