USPS settles NLRB complaint over data breach

Last month APWU reported:

In a first-of-its-kind complaint, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cited the Postal Service for failing to bargain with the APWU over last year’s massive data security breach. The incident which was revealed to the union and employees in mid-November, compromised the personal information of hundreds of thousands of current and former postal employees.

In response, the Postal Service decided unilaterally to offer employees just one year of free credit reporting.

APWU filed a NLRB charge after the Postal Service refused to bargain over management’s response to the breach and failed to respond to the union‘s request for information.

The complaint by NLRB cited the Postal Service for ignoring its legal obligations to bargain with the union.

In a move typically reserved for the most intractable employers, the NLRB was seeking special remedies for the Postal Service’s unlawful acts.

“In view of the extensive history of repeated unfair labor practice violations found by the Board and courts,” the complaint said, the NLRB is seeking an order “to comprehensively address the Postal Service’s violations of the law.”

The special remedies include a video featuring a top postal manager reading an NLRB-drafted notice to employees and an NLRB-imposed bargaining schedule, with regular progress reports and pay for union negotiators.

From Politico with a little tweaking

On Thursday May 21, 2015,  The U.S. Postal Service agreed to settle the NLRB complaint alleging it refused to bargain with its unions over how to rectify a data breach that compromised personal information for hundreds of thousands of postal employees.

The issue was a novel one for the board, which, experts say, has rarely, if ever, considered whether employers have a duty to bargain with labor groups over data breaches. The settlement constitutes what is essentially an admission by USPS that it had a duty to negotiate with unions over how to address the breach.