The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently took the unprecedented position that an employer violated federal law by failing to engage its employees’ union in collective bargaining regarding its response to a data breach. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) was the target of a 2014 data breach affecting over 800,000 of its current and former employees. The NLRB filed complaints against the USPS claiming that it executed its response to the breach without engaging in collective bargaining with the union. That’s a violation of National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) provisions mandating collective bargaining for any issue that relates to the “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” the NLRA alleged.
The NLRB complaints specifically allege that the USPS violated the NLRA by failing to collectively bargain with the union about the impact of the breach on union members. The USPS also allegedly violated the NLRA by unilaterally providing a remedy for the breach (one year of credit monitoring services and fraud insurance at no cost to employees) without giving prior notice to the union and providing it with an opportunity to negotiate the remedy. The NLRB complaints arose from charges filed by the American Postal Workers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association regarding the manner in which the USPS handled the breach.
This marks the first time the NLRB has suggested that data breach response and notification measures affecting employees relate “to the wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment” under the NLRA. If the NLRB’s position is found to have merit, that potentially makes the breach response process more complicated and costly for unionized organizations. Union negotiations would need to be conducted at the same time the organization is dealing with fallout from the data breach, such as repairing damage to internal systems, investigating the breach, and complying with breach notification laws. Union negotiations could put tremendous pressure on organizations trying to comply with data breach laws that require notification within a short time period after discovery of the breach. There is also a heightened risk of leaks to the press if organizations must notify unions before giving formal notification as required by law.
The NLRB’s complaints against the USPS reinforce the urgency of developing well-crafted breach response plans. Union organizations might wish to add items to their response plans that engage employee unions in the response process. Another precautionary measure is to solicit the input of the union in developing acceptable breach response protocols before a breach occurs rather than in the midst of a crisis situation.
