National Labor Relations Board requests briefs on email ruling
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The National Labor Relations board said Wednesday it is inviting briefs on whether it should make any changes to its 2014 Purple Communications Inc. ruling, which allowed workers to use employer email systems for union business.
The ruling in Purple Communications Inc. and Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO requires employers to make their corporate emails systems available for group discussion among employees about the terms and conditions of their employment during nonwork time, including for union organizing.
The ruling overturned a 2007 decision that said employees did not have a right under the National Labor Relations Act to use employer-owned email for organizing purposes.
The announcement that the NLRB will reconsider the Purple ruling was expected. Observers have anticipated such a move since NLRB General Counsel Peter B. Robb issued a memo in December asking regional officers to submit to the general counsel’s advice office cases involving significant legal issues, including those “over the last eight years that overruled precedent and involved one or more dissents.
In its announcement Wednesday, the NLRB said it is also inviting comment on the standard it should apply “to evaluate policies governing the use of employer-owned computer resources other than email.” Entries must be submitted on or before Sept. 5.
The request for briefs was approved by the three Republican members of the NLRB board — Chairman John F. Ring and members Marvin E. Kaplan and William J. Emanuel — with Democrats Mark Gaston Pearce and Lauren McFerrin dissenting.
Mr. Pearce said in his dissent that “nothing has changed since the issuance of Purple to warrant a re-examination of this precedent.”
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