Guard Publishing Co. (Register-Guard)
National Labor Relations Board
351 N.L.R.B. 1110 (2007)

- Written by Sarah Hoffman, JD
Facts
About 150 of Guard Publishing Company’s (Guard) employees were represented by a union. Guard implemented a new policy that restricted employees from using email for purposes related to political or religious causes, commercial ventures, other organizations, or other non-job-related solicitations. Guard continued to allow employees to use their work emails for personal messages such as party invitations and baby announcements, but solicitation of other organizations was not allowed. The only exception was emails related to the nonprofit network United Way, for which Guard periodically held charitable campaigns. The president of the union was written up twice for sending emails related to union business. The union filed a charge against Guard for unlawful discrimination under § 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act. An administrative-law judge found that Guard had allowed other employees to continue to use their work email for non-work-related purposes and had therefore violated § 8(a)(1) of the act by discriminatorily enforcing the rule against the union president. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reviewed the administrative-law judge’s decision.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning ()
Dissent (Liebman, Walsh, J.J.)
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