By Daniel Wiessner

July 7 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court panel on Tuesday appeared unlikely to allow a California law to take effect that bars employers from disciplining workers who refuse to attend mandatory meetings about religion, politics or union organizing.

Two of the three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said during oral arguments in San Francisco that the law, which took effect in early 2025 and was blocked by a judge in September, would chill employers' exercise of their free-speech rights.

And workers do not have a right to refuse to attend private meetings held in their workplaces while they are being paid, the judges told a lawyer arguing the state's appeal.

“It just seems to me you’re asking the 9th Circuit to put its head on the proverbial chopping block ... only to get slapped down by the Supreme Court,” Circuit Judge Richard Tallman said to the lawyer, Kristin Liska.

California is the most recent of a dozen U.S. states including New York, Illinois, Washington and Minnesota to enact bans on so-called captive audience meetings since 2009. Some of those laws have been challenged, but California's, known as SB 399, was the first to be blocked.

Most of the state laws apply only to workplace meetings discussing unionizing, and not religious or political topics more broadly. California's law also allows individual workers to sue their employers for violations, as opposed to most states where only the government can enforce the bans.

The California Chamber of Commerce and the California Policy Center, a conservative group, filed separate lawsuits challenging the law when it was enacted. U.S. District Judge Michelle Williams in Santa Ana last September said the Policy Center lacked standing to sue and dismissed its case.

But in the Chamber's case, U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta in Sacramento issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of SB 399. Calabretta said the state law was preempted by federal labor law and was an unconstitutional attempt to regulate employer speech.

The 9th Circuit on Tuesday heard appeals in both cases. The judges indicated that they could revive the Policy Center's case to give the group a chance to establish standing in an amended complaint.

In the Chamber's case, Liska, the state's lawyer, told the panel that the law regulates conduct — disciplining workers who do not attend meetings — and not speech, since employers are still free to hold voluntary meetings.

Tallman and Circuit Judge Mark Bennett were skeptical, saying the law only applies depending on the content of the speech at a given meeting.

Circuit Judge Richard Paez split with his colleagues, suggesting the Chamber lacked standing to sue. He told the Chamber's lawyer, Lonnie Giamela, that the group had not provided any specifics about the impact of the law on its members beyond vague claims about them holding "all hands meetings."

Bennett is an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump. Tallman and Paez are appointees of Democratic former President Bill Clinton.

The National Labor Relations Board during Democratic former President Joe Biden's term banned mandatory anti-union meetings, which had been fixtures of union campaigns for decades, in a case involving Amazon.com.

Amazon is appealing the decision, but Trump's appointees to the board are widely expected to overrule it once they have a third Republican vote to do so.

The cases are California Policy Center v. Garcia-Brower and California Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nos. 25-6173 and 25-6874.

For the California Policy Center: Jeffrey Schwab of Liberty Justice Center

For the California Chamber of Commerce: Lonnie Giamela of Fisher & Phillips

For the state: Deputy Attorney General Kristin Liska

For the amici business groups: Bryan Killian of Morgan Lewis & Bockius

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