CWA Wins Round in T-Mobile Fight at DC Circuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed with the Communications Workers of America that the National Labor Relations Board wrongly overturned an administrative law judge's decision that T-Mobile discriminated against union activity at its call center in…
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Wichita in violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Friday's decision in docket 20-1112 was written by Judge Cornelia Pillard. “We grant the Union’s petitions in full,” the court said: “The Board erred under our precedent by relying on its own post hoc distinction between permissible and impermissible employee conduct to reject the evidence of disparate treatment. Based on that evidence of disparate treatment, and because the policies and rationales that T-Mobile itself offered in defense of its actions do not support them, the Board’s decision to reverse the ALJ’s finding that T-Mobile discriminatorily enforced company policies related to email use is not supported by substantial evidence.” T-Mobile had responded to an email sent by a customer service representative through her work account inviting co-workers to join ongoing efforts at the call center to organize a union. T-Mobile reprimanded the employee and management sent out a facility-wide email saying it didn’t permit employees to send mass emails through the company's system for nonbusiness purposes. CWA has been trying to organize at the call center since 2009, the court said. Judith Rogers and Justin Walker were the other judges. T-Mobile didn't comment.