This Is Why We Said Give Us 5

Last summer we flooded congressional offices with calls, e-mails and petition signatures, telling our lawmakers, “Give Us 5!” We won.

Now, nearly a year later, it’s not difficult to see why a full strength National Labor Relations Board is so important. In its most recent move, the NLRB is reconsidering whether an employer can stop workers from using the company e-mail system for organizing. If it reverses the decision, it would give union activists across the country an incredibly powerful tool to talk about improving working conditions.

And it’s a big deal for CWAers.

The case in question involves Purple Communications, which employs interpreters for the deaf and hard of hearing, who are represented by TNG-CWA Local 39521. Last October, an administrative law judge dismissed workers' claim that the company's e-mail policy unlawfully restricted their right to discuss their jobs and stuck by a Bush-era NLRB decision that said CWA-represented newsroom employees at The Register Guard had “no statutory right" to use their employer’s e-mail system for Section 7 purposes.

Now the NLRB is saying — hold on, let’s think about it some more. It’s also asking interested groups to weigh in on related electronic communications questions:

• Do employee personal electronic devices (e.g., phones, tablets), social media accounts, and/or personal email accounts affect the proper balance to be struck between employers’ rights and employees’ Section 7 rights to communicate about work-related matters? If so, how?
  
  
• Identify any other technological issues concerning email or other electronic communications systems that the Board should consider in answering the foregoing questions, including any relevant changes that may have occurred in electronic communications technology since Register Guard was decided. How should these affect the Board’s decision?

Stay tuned. This is about to get interesting.