NLRB releases guidance on e-mail rules
Can limitations on e-mail use run afoul of union laws?
Last year, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a company was allowed to prohibit union officials from soliciting employees through company e-mail. The agency said the e-mail system was the company’s property, so it was lawful to control how it was used.
To clarify the impact of the ruling, the NLRB has just released a set of guidelines on employers’ control over e-mail use. According to the NLRB, legal policies are:
- Written down — Like all policies, they can’t be enforced if they aren’t written down and given to employees.
- Consistently enforced — In last year’s case, the company had a policy against all “non-work-related solicitations” sent through company e-mail. In other cases, employers allowed workers to attract support for other outside organizations, but disciplined employees for drumming up union support. Those companies broke the law, the Board said.
- Limited in scope — The decision only addressed the issue of solicitation — preventing employees from discussing working conditions through e-mail may still violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Read the NLRA’s guidance here.
