WASHINGTON (AP) - In a victory for unions, the National
Labor Relations Board ruled Thursday that employees can use their company email
accounts for union organizing and other workplace-related purposes, if they do
it on their own time.
Once an employer gives an employee access to the company
email system, then the business cannot restrict what the employee emails, so
long as it is generally workplace-related and isn't during working hours, the
NLRB ruled. The NLRB is a government agency that investigates unfair labor
practices.
The ruling said that "the use of email as a common
form of workplace communications has expanded dramatically in recent
years." The ruling could give unions a powerful organizing weapon.
The three Democrats on the five member board voted
"yes," while the two Republicans abstained.
The ruling reverses a 2007 board decision that employees
don't have a legal right to use their employers' email for union activity or
discussing wages or other workplace issues.
It also upholds an opinion by the NLRB's general counsel,
who suggested that workers had a presumed statutory right to use company email
to discuss a range of workplace issues - so long as they did it on their own
time and unless an employer could demonstrate that doing so would hurt
productivity of office discipline.
The decision was a victory for the Communications Workers
of America, which brought the case in 2012 after it was unable to use company
email to organize employees of Purple Communications in Rocklin, California, a
company that provides interpreting services for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The union contended that prohibiting Purple workers from using company email
for to organize interfered with its efforts.
Bernie Lunzer, president of the Newspaper Guild-CWA and a
vice president of the Communications Workers of America, called the ruling
"a big victory for workers in general. Basically the board is saying that
there is a wide berth for that kind of discussion, that it can't be prohibited.
There are limitations. This is something where people are supposed to be doing
this not on the work time. And they can't be obstructive to the productivity of
the company. But the flat-out prohibition of any discussion of forming a union
or acting collectively, basically to board has said that's fair."
Joel Barras, a lawyer who represents employers in
collective bargaining and labor arbitration matters, said that the NLRB in its
ruling "once again elevated employee protected activity over employer
property rights. Not only will employees now have the ability to use their work
emails in their efforts to unionize or discuss terms and conditions of
employment with co-workers, an employer's communication system may also become
an incredibly effective tool used to recruit members to form or join
class-action cases."
In Thursday's ruling, the board majority said the earlier
decision "was clearly incorrect. The consequences of that error are too
serious to permit it to stand."
"By focusing too much on employers' property rights
and too little on the importance of email as a means of workplace
communication, the Board (in its earlier ruling) failed to adequately protect
employees' rights ... and abdicated its responsibility 'to adapt the Act to the
changing patterns of industrial life."
A number of weighty issues have yet to be decided by the
board, and it seems likely to tackle some of them before the Dec. 16 departure
of one of its Democratic members, Nancy Schiffer, when her term expires.
There will still be a 3-2 majority on the board with the
GOP takeover of Senate control next year after the Senate voted 54-40 earlier
this month to confirm Lauren McGarity McFerran, a Democrat, to fill the
vacancy.
Pending decisions include whether college athletes on
scholarships have the right to unionize. The case stems from an effort by
Northwestern University scholarship football players to organize.
Online: NLRB Case 21-CA-095151
Source: Philly.com
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