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NLRB: Employees Can Use Employer E-mail Systems for Organizing Activities


Last month, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") handed down its full decision in Purple Communications.  The most significant note to come out of the decision is that employees now have a right to use their employers' email systems during non-work time to communicate about union issues.  

This 3 - 2 ruling in favor of employees discarded decades of legal precedent and overruled Register Guard, which allowed employers to impose nondiscriminatory restrictions on employees' nonbusiness use of equipment.  According to the ruling from Register Guard, an employers' e-mail system should be treated like any other piece of employer equipment. 

In light of this HUGE decision from the NLRB, employers should review, and if necessary, amend any e-mail and electronic communications policies to ensure they do not constrain employees from engaging in conversations about union issues during non-work time.  While some employers may allow employees to use their work e-mail for personal use, this ruling from the NLRB flips the script ten fold.  This ruling has opened the flood gates and conceivably allows employees, and by extension the unions they support, to use employer e-mail systems for union organizing activities.   


A link to the December 11, 2014 Purple Communications ruling:   http://www.nlrb.gov/case/21-CA-095151

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