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NLRB To Be Barred From Forcing Employers to Allow Unions Use of Company E-mail System to Organize?


Recently, the ranking Republican of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) offered to propose amendments to an appropriations bill that would prohibit unions from being given access to employers' email systems which allow unions to view employees' personal e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers.  The proposed amendment would also prohibit unions from forcing employers to open up e-mail systems for union organizing.

Senator Alexander couched part of his support of this amendment on the grounds that employees have a right to privacy.  He included an example of agents of Communication Workers of America Local 1103 in Connecticut who used personal information they obtained about one woman who did not support to the union to sign her up for hundreds of unsolicited and unwanted magazines and other products.  

The Senator also criticized the increased politicization of the NLRB over the years and advocated that the Board should be an umpire, rather than an advocate.  This is not much of a surprise, but still interesting reading for a high ranking Senator to come out so strongly against the way the NLRB has operated in recent years.


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