Employee Emails Further Protected from Organizing Activity

In 2014 the NLRB issued one of its most controversial decisions, Purple Communications , holding that because email is the modern equivalent of a watercooler or gathering place, employees have a right to use their work email during non‐work time to discuss and promote unionization. Employers were relieved in 2019 when the NLRB in Caesar's Palace jettisoned Purple Communications and announced a new standard that returned greater discretion to employers in regulating the use of their information technology systems. In Caesar's , the Board said employees no longer had carte blanche to use company email systems. It upheld the employer's rule that restricted employees' use of the company's IT resources including email to business purposes only.