Management Memo

Last week we reported on the fact that Teamsters Local 853 and Loop Transportation had completed negotiations for a first collective bargaining agreement covering a unit of shuttle bus drivers who provide transport for employees of Facebook.  We pointed out that employers in technology, media and telecommunications were facing union organizing targeting employees of their vendors and suppliers for transportation, maintenance, food service and the like, that threatened to enmesh such employers as a consequence of unions gaining recognition of their vendors’ and ...

By Kara M. Maciel and Lindsay A. Smith

On April 30, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) invited interested parties to submit amicus briefs addressing an employee’s right to use an employer’s electronic communications system for Section 7 activity in the case of Purple Communications Inc.  Based on a prior Board decision in Guard Publishing Co. d/b/a Register Guard (2007), employers are not currently required to allow employee use of their e-mail systems for protected, concerted activities because in that case the Board held, “employees have no ...