A federal court has ruled against the National Labor Relations Board in a case watched closely by the South Carolina business community. A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an NLRB requirement that employers post information about their rights to join a union.

The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce has been a part of a similar lawsuit which is now in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and is expected to be decided soon.

This is the result of  non-union states’ legal pushback against the National Labor Relations Board in the past year. South Carolina conservative and business leaders had already gotten testy over the board’s attempts to block Boeing’s expansion into North Charleston over union concerns.

In this case, Otis Rawl, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce CEO said. “The NLRB was asking the  business community to do something it would  not normally do…and we would have liked the posters to also say employees have the right not to unionize. That was the basis of our case.

“From our standpoint, is we are getting a lot businesses who are looking at South Carolina as a low-union state,” said Rawl. He says they feared that unions could use the poster as an advertising tool at the cost of companies.

The D.C. court seems to agree, “There is nothing in the text of the NLRA to suggest the burden of filling the“knowledge gap” should fall on the employer’s shoulders. Unions and the NLRB are at least as qualified to disseminate appropriate information.”

Rawl says the D.C. ruling may help the SC Chamber’s case, and if both courts rule against the federal labor board it is less likely the Supreme Court would take it up.

If the Supreme Court hears a further appeal, the chamber’s side of the case would challenge the validity of board members appointed by President Obama during a recess and not confirmed by the Senate.