In a 3-to-2 ruling released Friday, the National Labor Relations Board held that employers have the right to bar workers from sending union-related email using the company email system. Critics of the decision note that the Board's ruling applies different standards to union-related messages than to organizational-related messages involving most other subjects, and diverges from previous rulings involving communication methods such as bulletin boards. (Please note this article was published December 23 - during our Winter Break.)
See "Labor Board Restricts Union Use of E-Mail", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, January 2, 2008