Employees Can Use Work Email for Union Organizing, Board Rules
The National Labor Relations Board ruled on Thursday that employers could not prohibit employees from using their company’s email to communicate and engage in union organizing on their own time, The New York Times reports.
The 3-to-2 ruling overturned a decision made in 2007, when Republicans held a majority on the board, that had forbidden such use of email.
The current majority, noting how technology has transformed daily habits, called that ruling “clearly incorrect,” according to The Times report. “The workplace is ‘uniquely appropriate’ and ‘the natural gathering place’ for such communications,” the board wrote, “and the use of email as a common form of workplace communication has expanded dramatically in recent years.”