## Facts

- Technology Service Solutions (TSS) employed about 236 customer service representatives (CSRs) who installed and serviced computer systems in eight Southern and Central states.
- The CSRs did not report to a shared facility; they worked from home and were dispatched electronically to customer sites.
- A labor union sought to organize the Colorado-based CSRs and, through phone and other outreach, obtained signed authorization cards from enough Colorado CSRs to support an election petition.
- In the representation proceeding, the NLRB Regional Director approved a Colorado-only unit and directed an election, and TSS provided the union a list of 63 Colorado CSRs’ names and addresses.
- TSS requested Board review of the unit determination.
- The Board decided the only appropriate unit was a multi-state unit of all 236 CSRs rather than a Colorado-only unit.
- After the unit determination changed, the union requested that TSS provide the names and home addresses of all CSRs, asserting it could not meaningfully reach employees due to the at-home, dispersed structure.
- TSS refused to provide any broader list beyond the Colorado list already provided in the earlier election posture.
- The General Counsel issued an unfair labor practice complaint alleging that TSS’s refusal unlawfully interfered with employees’ Section 7 rights in violation of NLRA § 8(a)(1).
- An administrative law judge dismissed the § 8(a)(1) allegation, and the Board reviewed that dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether an employer violates NLRA § 8(a)(1) by refusing to provide a noncertified union with a companywide list of employees’ names and home addresses for organizing purposes outside the Board’s election-list procedures.
2. Whether the Board’s election-list rule in *Excelsior Underwear* can be extended to require disclosure of employee contact information when employees are home-based and geographically dispersed.

## Decision

- The Board affirmed the administrative law judge’s dismissal of the complaint.
- The Board held that TSS did not violate § 8(a)(1) by refusing to provide the union with the names and home addresses of all 236 CSRs.
- The Board treated the *Excelsior Underwear* name-and-address list requirement as limited to the representation-election process and declined to impose a broader disclosure duty for organizing outside that context.
- A dissenting member would have found a violation given the unusual difficulty of contacting a scattered, home-based workforce without employer-provided contact information.

## Legal Principles

- NLRA § 8(a)(1) bars employer conduct that interferes with, restrains, or coerces employees in exercising Section 7 rights, but it does not generally require employers to provide affirmative assistance to a union’s organizing campaign.
- The *Excelsior Underwear* rule requires an employer to provide a list of eligible voters’ names and addresses in connection with a Board-directed election, under the Board’s election procedures.
- Outside a Board-directed election (and absent a certified bargaining relationship), an employer’s refusal to provide a union with employee names and home addresses, standing alone, is not treated as interference under § 8(a)(1).
- Practical difficulties in reaching employees—such as a mobile, home-based workforce without a shared workplace—do not by themselves create a freestanding statutory right to compel disclosure of home addresses for organizing.

## Conclusion

In *Technology Service Solutions (I)*, the NLRB held that TSS did not commit an unfair labor practice under § 8(a)(1) when it refused to give a noncertified union a companywide list of CSRs’ names and home addresses after the Board determined the only appropriate unit included all 236 CSRs across multiple states, because the Board’s name-and-address disclosure obligation arises through its election procedures and was not extended into a general organizing-stage disclosure requirement.


Technology Service Solutions (I), 332 N.L.R.B. 1096 (2000)