The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel, Richard Griffin, thinks it’s time to change a rule relating to work email. According to Cary Burke of McKenna Long & Aldridge, the GC filed a brief this week in which he argued that the board should overturn an antiquated 2007 decision, as “it does not account for the realities of the 21st century workplace,” said Burke.
The decision, Register Guard, stands for the principle that employees don’t have a right under the statute to use their employer’s email for the purpose of union organizing, explains Burke. In the brief, Griffin argues that employees should be able to use their work email system to organize, during nonwork time, “absent a showing of special circumstances relating to the employer’s need to maintain production and discipline,” according to the GC’s office.
