NLRB hits Postal Service over response to cyber breach

The National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint calling on the US Postal Service to negotiate with employee groups over how quickly to tell personnel about cyberattacks that affect their personal data. The March 31 action came in response to allegations that the agency violated federal labor law by not bargaining with postal unions over an appropriate timeline for alerting workers about a network breach in 2014. The Postal Service has until April 14 to answer the complaint, and a trial before an NLRB administrative-law judge is scheduled to take place May 11 in Washington, DC.

The USPS said it is still reviewing the allegations, which came from the American Postal Workers Union, the National Letter Carriers Association and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association. The agency also noted that it took steps to protect employees affected by the intrusion. “Once employees could be notified of the cyber breach, the Postal Service did offer all impacted employees one year of free credit-monitoring services, in order to protect them from identity theft,” USPS said. The NLRB complaint calls on the Postal Service to publish notices about the alleged labor-law violations and bargain with postal unions “for a minimum of 15 hours a week until an agreement or lawful impasse is reached or until the parties agree to a respite in bargaining.”