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:

1. Written down — Like all policies, they can’t be enforced if they aren’t written down and given to employees.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Tags: e-mail, NLRB, solicitation