Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The federal labor board ruled this week that employers can block workers from using email to organize, in a decision that companies, including Google, have asked for.
The National Labor Relations Board said in the 3–1 decision that “employees have no statutory right to use employer equipment, including IT resources,” for union activity, giving management leeway to ban organizing on their work email systems. The decision undoes a previous ruling from the board decided under the Obama administration, which gave workers more latitude to use their work email for legally protected labor activity.
The decision, which was based on a Las Vegas casino’s email policy, was recommended…