Rule imposed by Obama NLRB forced employers to hand over employee private email and phone numbers to union organizers
Washington, DC (July 28, 2020) – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced today proposed rulemaking regarding its election procedures. This proposal would eliminate a requirement imposed by the Obama NLRB in 2014 that employers must hand over workers’ private information to union organizers, including phone numbers and email addresses, even over the objection of individual workers.
National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix commented that the NLRB’s proposal is a needed safeguard for the privacy of employees, protecting them from union boss coercion:
“Today the NLRB takes a necessary step towards ending a gross invasion of workers’ privacy inherent in the Obama Board’s deeply flawed 2014 Ambush Election Rule. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which has provided free legal aid to numerous workers victimized by union boss retaliation utilizing workers’ private information, cited the privacy issues with handing over employees’ personal private contact information both in opposition to the 2014 rule and again in 2018 comments to the new NLRB.
“The Board should resist any calls to delay or extend its rulemaking deadlines announced today so it can implement these common sense worker privacy protections as swiftly as possible.”
The ambush election rules were rushed out on December 15, 2014, the last day of former union lawyer Nancy Schiffer’s term on the NLRB. The NLRB had previously rushed the regulations out before former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer Craig Becker’s term expired in December 2011, but they were later invalidated by a federal district court in 2012 on procedural grounds.
In addition to submitting comments to the Obama NLRB opposing the rule when it was first announced in 2014, Foundation staff attorneys helped three construction workers whose privacy had been violated under the policy to join a lawsuit in April 2015 challenging it. Veteran Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman also testified before the US House of Representatives on the dangers of the policy in 2015.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
