The National Labor Relations Board ruled Thursday that workers can use their bosses’ tools to organize against them. Sort of.
Employees will be able to use work email systems in a bid to form unions after the board reversed a 2007 decision it made under the Bush administration.
The NLRB also noted that e-organizing must not be met with additional surveillance by bosses. If employers regularly intercept their underlings’ communications, they will be allowed to continue the practice. But a company is forbidden from “increasing its monitoring during an organizational campaign or focusing its monitoring efforts on protected conduct or union activists,” the ruling stated.
The majority opinion also put the kibosh on blanket email bans in response to online agitation and organization. It stated that management can only withdraw access to digital communications if it can prove the maneuver was done “to maintain production or discipline.”
