The Trump Administration Is Trying to Outlaw Union Organizing Over Company Email

A Republican-dominated agency argues that allowing organizers to use company email is impinging on companies’ First Amendment rights

Donald Trump speaks to a crowd gathered at the Local 18 Richfield Facility of the Operating Engineers Apprentice and Training, a union and apprentice training center on March 29, 2018 in Richfield, Ohio. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Stringer/Getty

David Galvan’s job is typically either hard, or very hard. As the lone full-time organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 304 — the largest electrical workers’ union in Kansas — he is tasked with starting new unions in industries ranging from rural gas service to power line construction, and building support when it’s time for renegotiating a contract for the roughly 2,500 workers he represents. He needs to be able to talk to union members, meet the new guys, and convince everyone that a union is worth fighting for.

But he’s often faced with a problem: reaching workers. Sometimes, he doesn’t even know where they are. The workers Galvan represents are scattered around the state of Kansas, with many in isolated, rural towns. Some work out of their trucks, traveling a hundred miles from one day to the next.

Fortunately, most of these workers have company email addresses, which Galvan can use for coordinating union activities. He says email has become an indispensable method for maintaining steady communication…