California union ordered to stop trying to read public employee emails

A California local government union inappropriately used records requests to monitor members’ email correspondence, an administrative law judge for the Public Employment Relations Board ruled in a recent decision.

The union, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 3, represents employees of the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito & Vector Control District.

Administrative Law Judge Alicia Clement on Jan. 22 ruled that the union must stop efforts to obtain district employee emails. The union also is ordered to post copies of the judge’s decision in all district workplaces, and to send an email copy to all bargaining unit employees.

The ruling comes as a result of a legal challenge filed by three plaintiffs — field technicians Bretty Day, Ryan Wagner and Mark Pipkin, all of whom are public employees covered by the union and were interested separating from it. That challenge was filed with help from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, whose president, Mark Mix, issued a statement following the decision.

“IUOE union bosses’ conduct in this case clearly demonstrates that they were far more interested in maintaining their one-size-fits-all bargaining power over Day, Wagner, and Pipkin’s workplace than in respecting the rights and privacy of the very workers they claim to represent,” Mix said.

A spokesperson for the union did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. In 2018, an IUOE leader told The Sacramento Bee that it submitted a public records request to determine if managers were interfering with the union.

The Right to Work Foundation said the union utilized the California Public Records Act to search for mosquito district employee emails containing words and phrases including “decertification,” “PERB,” “union,” “decertify,” “how to get rid of union,” “Public Employee Relations Board,” and “Meyers Milias Brown Act.”

The Meyers Milias Brown Act gives public employees “the right to refuse to join or participate in the activities of employee organizations and ... the right to represent themselves individually in their employment relations with the public agency.”

This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 5:25 AM.