## Facts

- A newspaper employer maintained an email “Communications Systems Policy” barring “non-job-related solicitations,” including solicitations for outside organizations and various nonwork causes.
- Employees were represented by a union; the employer informally tolerated many personal, nonwork emails (e.g., social announcements).
- The employer also permitted email use in connection with certain employer-backed charitable campaigns.
- The union president sent work-account emails to bargaining-unit employees about union matters, including messages urging participation in union-related activities.
- Management issued written discipline for two union-related emails it treated as prohibited solicitations under the policy.
- The union alleged the policy and discipline violated NLRA §§ 8(a)(1), 8(a)(3), and 8(a)(5).

## Issues

1. Whether employees have a § 7 right to use an employer’s email system for union or other protected concerted activity.
2. Whether a policy barring “non-job-related solicitations” via employer email is unlawful on its face under § 8(a)(1).
3. Whether disciplining an employee for union-related emails unlawfully discriminates against § 7 activity in violation of §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(3).
4. Whether the employer violated § 8(a)(5) by unlawfully insisting to impasse on a proposal to prohibit email use for “union business.”

## Decision

- The Board held employees have no general § 7 right to use an employer’s email system for protected communications.
- The Board held the “non-job-related solicitations” email policy was lawful on its face.
- The Board adopted a narrower standard for discrimination, limiting unlawful discrimination to differential treatment drawn along § 7 lines.
- Applying that standard, the Board found no unlawful discrimination in most enforcement against union-related solicitations, but found one discipline violated § 8(a)(1) because the underlying email was not a “solicitation” within the policy.
- The Board found no § 8(a)(3) violation on the discipline record presented.
- The Board found no § 8(a)(5) violation because the employer did not insist to impasse on a proposal to bar email use for “union business.”

## Legal Principles

- Employer email systems are employer property; absent unlawful discrimination, the NLRA does not require employers to permit use of employer-owned equipment for § 7 communications.
- An employer may limit email use to job-related purposes (or prohibit specified nonwork uses) if applied without discrimination against § 7 activity.
- For employer-property access rules, “discrimination” means drawing distinctions based on the § 7-protected status of communications (i.e., treating similar communications differently because they are union or § 7 related), not merely treating different categories of nonwork content differently.
- “Solicitation” communications (requests for participation or action) may be barred under a no-solicitation email rule; purely informational or argumentative messages that are not solicitations fall outside such a ban.
- An employer does not violate § 8(a)(5) absent proof it insisted to impasse on a permissive bargaining subject as a condition of agreement.

## Conclusion

The Board upheld a facially lawful ban on nonwork email solicitations and rejected a general § 7 entitlement to employer email, limiting unlawful discrimination to unequal treatment based on § 7 status; however, discipline still violates § 8(a)(1) when imposed for messages that do not fall within the policy’s defined prohibition.


Guard Publ'g Co. (Register-Guard), 351 N.L.R.B. 1110 (2007)