formal comments to the Board's proposed rule. - SEIU

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day, more than 80 times the number of USPS letters.’° email. 2 Today, nearly all working age adults use 103 As of 2007, 85% of adults reported owning a cell phone while only 71% of adults reported owning a home phone.’° 4 These trends are but a few signs that the ability to transmit and receive information more cheaply and more efficiently over the phone and via email has drastically changed the way Americans communicate. Indeed, even where an employer is not deliberately trying to sabotage the union’s ability to communicate with workers, a mailing address is rarely the best way to reach workers. In particular, when SEIU locals have organized younger, low-wage workers, we have often found that because these workers move around so much, they often will use as a mailing address the address of a more stable relative. Thus, organizers have often knocked on doors only to learn that the address they have for a worker is actually the address of the worker’s mother, aunt, or grandmother. In addition to technological changes, the proposed rule also takes into account other ways the country has changed in the last half-century. Over the past half-century, urban sprawl and commuting distances have both increased. In major urban centers, it is not unusual for workers to commute more than one hour in each direction. Thus, a typical hospital worker in Los Angeles might have to drive two hours in one direction in order to make a home visit to a co-worker. Also, as wages have stagnated, workers have often responded by working longer hours. The result is that workers are rarely home to receive house calls. In addition, in the 1960s, many households consisted of a husband who worked and a wife who was responsible for childcare and homemaking. This arrangement left the working husband available to engage in extended conversations when a union organizer knocked on the door. Today, given the large participation of women in the workforce, particularly those with young children, both spouses typically work and share child-care duties. This means that even if a union organizer happens to find a worker at home, she is typically cooking dinner and helping her child with homework, making it impractical to engage in an extended conversation about unionization. The Board should also clarify that the proposed rules would apply to all employee phone numbers and email addresses available to employers, both work and personal. Although in some cases employers may not have access to cell phone numbers or personal email addresses, when they do, similar access should be given to the union as well. An employee who communicates with a union over a work email address may be reluctant to speak honestly due to the understandable fear that the employer can monitor what is being said. Therefore, if personal emails are available to the employer, 101 See “Projecting U.S. Mail Volumes to 2020,” at 2, www.usps.com/strategicplanningtpdf/BCG Narrative.pdf (“The U.S. Postal Service will experience profound declines in its volumes of mail. . . over the next decade... [T}he trajectory for the next 10 years is one of steady decline, which will not reverse even as the current recession abates.”). 102 “Email v. Snail Mail,” Pingdom blog, http://royal.pingdoin.com/2010/09/29/email-vs-snail-mail-infbgraphic.. 103 Pew Internet and American Life Project, Generations 2010, at pewinternet.orgiReports/2Ol0iGeneraiioiis-2010.aspx. ‘° Harris Interactive, A Study about Cell Phone Usage, 2007. 26
they should be provided to the union as well so that employees can communicate with the union in a more private manner without the possibility of employer surveillance. The proposed changes to the voter eligibility list requirements are not in conflict with the Board’s holding in Trustees of Columbia University,’ 05 which held that it was not objectionable conduct for the employer to refuse to provide email addresses for ship crew members who were at sea for most of the pre-election period. In fact, Trustees of Columbia University merely declined to decide the matter because various issues raised by the proposal of including email addresses among the Excelsior list requirements “should be fully briefed and considered before the Board departs from longstanding, wellunderstood precedent.”° 6 The Board’s rule-making process addresses these concerns. Although opponents have argued that unions will use the phone numbers and email addresses of employees as a means to harass and annoy them, there is no evidence to support this claim. In reality, unions have no incentive to use this contact information to harass employees because this would undermine the ulimate goal of garnering their votes. As the Fourth Circuit has explained, “It is unlikely that a union seeking votes to be cast in a secret ballot election would alienate potential support by overly aggressive campaigning.” 107 State tort and criminal laws would serve as a bulwark against third parties misusing the list to harass employees outside of the labor context. Modernizing voter eligibility lists also will not infringe employee privacy rights. As the Fourth Circuit held, “the mere possibility that employees will be inconvenienced by telephone calls or visits to their homes is far outweighed by the public interest in an informed electorate.” 108 As a practical matter, any employee who does not wish to participate in a phone conversation or email exchange with a union can end the call or delete the email with a press of a button. The NLRB’s proposed voter eligibility list requirements further the public policy of a fair election by fostering a fully informed employee electorate. As the Supreme Court has recognized, fulfillment of this policy rests on “allowing unions the right of access to employees that management already possesses.” 109 How people receive and transmit information in this country has radically changed, requiring the Board’s requirements to adapt along with these changes. In the end, it is the Board’s duty to weigh “the asserted interest of employees in avoiding the problems that union 105 350 NLRB 574 (2007). 107 at 576. NLP v. J.F. Stevens & Co., 409 F.2d 1207, 1209 (4th Cir. 1969). ‘°8J.P. Stevens & Co., 409 F.2d at 1209. 109 Wyman-Gordon, 394 U.S. at 767 (1969). 27
Page 1 and 2: I Stronger Together MARY KAY HENRY
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formal comments to the Board's proposed rule. - SEIU

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