In a notable new development, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a decision putting to bed a long-running issue of whether employees must be allowed to use employer-owned electronic devices for non-work purposes.
In 2015, the then Obama-appointed majority on the NLRB overturned precedent and ruled in the case of Purple Communications that employers were required to allow personal use of employer-provided email systems by any employee granted the ability to use the email system for business purposes. That decision was appealed, and as it was pending in the courts, a new NLRB majority composed of Trump appointees expressly overruled Purple Communications in the case of Caesars Entertainment and held that employees don’t have a statutory right to use their employer’s equipment, including email, for personal reasons, unless there is no other way to communicate with each other.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.