{"id":543,"date":"2015-02-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events-lindabury.blawgcloud.com\/2015\/02\/company-email-can-now-be-used-by-employees-for-union-activity.html"},"modified":"2022-01-10T15:37:52","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T20:37:52","slug":"company-email-can-now-be-used-by-employees-for-union-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/company-email-can-now-be-used-by-employees-for-union-activity.html","title":{"rendered":"Company Email Can Now Be Used By Employees For Union Activity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Section 7 of the National Labor Relation Act protects employees\u2019 right to communicate with one another regarding their terms and conditions of employment and to engage in unionization activities at the jobsite.\u00a0 However, the National Labor Relations Board (\u201cNLRB\u201d) historically held that employers may place reasonable restrictions\u00a0on employees\u2019 conduct and communications while on employer property and while on working time without violating Section 7 rights.\u00a0 Consistent with those holdings, in 2007 the NLRB issued its ruling in, holding that employers could prohibit employees from using the employer&#8217;s email system to communicate with each other about union matters or other terms and conditions of employment, even if employees were permitted access to the email system for other purposes.<\/p>\n<p>That all changed with the NLRB\u2019s \u00a0recent ruling, reversing the decision. Effectively immediately, employees provided access to employer email systems for work activities may now be permitted to use these systems during non-work time for \u201cstatutorily protected communications\u201d concerning unionization efforts, salaries and benefits\u00a0and other terms and conditions of employment. Employers looking to restrict email access for such purposes must demonstrate that the measures are necessary to maintain production, discipline or other \u00a0\u201cspecial circumstances\u201d warranting restriction of these employee rights.\u00a0 However, the NLRB cautioned that \u201cbecause limitations on employee communication should be no more restrictive than necessary to protect the employer\u2019s interests, we anticipate that it will be the rare case where special circumstances justify a total ban on nonwork email use by employees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In ruling in favor of employee access to email systems for Section 7 activities during non-work time, the NLRB pointed to a recent observation by the U.S. Supreme Court \u00a0that email has become a fundamental means of communication in the workplace and \u201csome personal use of employer email systems is common and, most often, is accepted and tolerated by employers.\u201d The NLRB concluded that employees\u2019 Section 7 rights trump an employer\u2019s property rights to its communications systems.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/company-email-can-now-be-used-by-employees-for-union-activity.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Company Email Can Now Be Used By Employees For Union Activity\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Section 7 of the National Labor Relation Act protects employees\u2019 right to communicate with one another regarding their terms and conditions of employment and to engage in unionization activities at the jobsite.\u00a0 However, the National Labor Relations Board (\u201cNLRB\u201d) historically held that employers may place reasonable restrictions\u00a0on employees\u2019 conduct and communications while on employer property [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,108,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[189],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-schmidt","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Company Email Can Now Be Used By Employees For Union Activity &#8212; February 2, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Section 7 of the National Labor Relation Act protects employees\u2019 right to communicate with one another regarding their terms and conditions of employment\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/company-email-can-now-be-used-by-employees-for-union-activity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Company Email Can Now Be Used By Employees For Union Activity &#8212; February 2, 2015 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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