152
Opinion of the Court
fashion remedies when dealing only with the NLRA, it is not so unbounded as to authorize this sort of an award.
Lack of authority to award backpay does not mean that the employer gets off scot-free. The Board here has already imposed other significant sanctions against Hoffman—sanctions Hoffman does not challenge. See supra, at 140. These include orders that Hoffman cease and desist its violations of the NLRA, and that it conspicuously post a notice to employees setting forth their rights under the NLRA and detailing its prior unfair practices. 306 N. L. R. B., at 100- 101. Hoffman will be subject to contempt proceedings should it fail to comply with these orders. NLRB v. Warren Co., 350 U. S. 107, 112-113 (1955) (Congress gave the Board civil contempt power to enforce compliance with the Board's orders). We have deemed such "traditional remedies" sufficient to effectuate national labor policy regardless of whether the "spur and catalyst" of backpay accompanies them. Sure-Tan, 467 U. S., at 904. See also id., at 904, n. 13 ("This threat of contempt sanctions . . . provides a significant deterrent against future violations of the [NLRA]"). As we concluded in Sure-Tan, "in light of the practical workings of the immigration laws," any "perceived deficienc[y] in the NLRA's existing remedial arsenal" must be "addressed by congressional action," not the courts. Id., at 904. In light of IRCA, this statement is even truer today.6
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
6 Because the Board is precluded from imposing punitive remedies, Republic Steel Corp. v. NLRB, 311 U. S. 7, 9-12 (1940), it is an open question whether awarding backpay to undocumented aliens, who have no entitlement to work in the United States at all, might constitute a prohibited punitive remedy against an employer. See Del Rey Tortilleria, Inc. v. NLRB, 976 F. 2d, at 1119 (finding that undocumented workers discharged in violation of the NLRA have not been harmed in a legal sense and should not be entitled to backpay, because the " 'award provisions of the NLRA are remedial, not punitive, in nature, and thus should be awarded only to
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