The Republican NLRB is Trying to Make it Harder for Working People to Join Together

The National Labor Relations Board was created in 1935 to help protect the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employers and to participate in collective action to improve their pay and working conditions.

NLRB members are appointed by the president. Instead of protecting working people, President Trump's appointees have been trying to roll back progress workers have made and further rig the system in favor of employers.

Their latest target is email communications. In 2014, CWA filed charges against Purple Communications for restricting the ability of members to use work email outside of work to discuss workplace issues. In a major win, the NLRB ruled in favor of the workers at Purple Communications, recognizing that email has become a critical means of communication about working conditions and other issues.

Employers have been targeting the ruling ever since, and are seizing their chance to overturn it now that a Trump-appointed, Republican-controlled NLRB is in place. The Board is currently asking for comments on whether or not to overrule the decision.

The Board is also trying to narrow the "joint employer" rule. In the 2015 Browning-Ferris decision, the Board adopted a joint employer standard that helped ensure that employers who control workers' terms and conditions of employment are at the bargaining table. Narrowing this rule would allow employers to gain the benefits of workers' contributions without being held accountable, and would incentivize employers to use more temps and contractors, instead of using full-time employees.