Yes, we believe your bank is required to post the Illinois Human Rights Act notice, in addition to the required federal notices. We are not aware of any federal banking or employment laws that would preempt notice or disclosure requirements in state employment laws for national banks. Nor do we think this particular notice requirement would invite federal preemption under the standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal Barnett case and codified for state consumer financial protection laws in the Dodd-Frank Act, which is whether a state law significantly interferes with a national bank’s exercise of its powers.

The Illinois Human Rights Act requires all employers with fifteen or more employees, working twenty or more weeks a year in Illinois, to conspicuously post a notice published by the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) that summarizes an employee’s rights under the Illinois Human Rights Act, or to provide the same information in an employee handbook. The IDHR notice is available here on the Department’s website.  In addition to the IDHR notice, the Illinois Department of Labor publishes a notice that summarizes employee rights under various state employment laws, in addition to any notices required by federal law, available here.

Also note that, as of this writing, legislation eliminating the exemption in the Illinois Human Rights Act for employers with less than fifteen employees is awaiting gubernatorial action.  

For resources related to our guidance, please see:

• Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/2-102(K)(1) (“It is a civil rights violation: . . . For an employer to fail to post or keep posted in a conspicuous location on the premises of the employer where notices to employees are customarily posted, or fail to include in any employee handbook information concerning an employee’s rights under this Article, a notice, to be prepared or approved by the Department, summarizing the requirements of this Article and information pertaining to the filing of a charge, including the right to be free from unlawful discrimination, the right to be free from sexual harassment, and the right to certain reasonable accommodations. The Department shall make the documents required under this paragraph available for retrieval from the Department's website.”)

• Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/2-101(B)(1)  (“‘Employer’ includes: (a) Any person employing 15 or more employees within Illinois during 20 or more calendar weeks within the calendar year of or preceding the alleged violation . . . . (b) Any person employing one or more employees when a complainant alleges civil rights violation due to unlawful discrimination based upon his or her physical or mental disability unrelated to ability, pregnancy, or sexual harassment. . . .”)

• https://www2.illinois.gov/idol/Employers/Pages/posters.aspx (Illinois Department of Labor website)

• Barnett Bank of Marion County, N.A. v. Nelson, 517 U.S. 25, 33 (1996) (the National Bank Act preempts state laws that “significantly interfere with [a] national bank’s exercise of its powers.”)

• Section 1044 of the Dodd-Frank Act, 12 U.S.C. §25(b) (a “state consumer financial law” is preempted only if: “. . . (B) in accordance with the legal standard for preemption in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Barnett Bank of Marion County, N. A. v. Nelson, Florida Insurance Commissioner, et al., 517 U.S. 25 (1996), the State consumer financial law prevents or significantly interferes with the exercise by the national bank of its powers . . . .”

• House Bill 4572, 100th General Assembly (an “employer” is “any person employing one 15 or more employees within Illinois . . . .”)