The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that Acting General Counsel William B. Cowen issued GC Memorandum 25-07 to all field offices. The memorandum, which is entitled “Surreptitious Recordings of Collective-Bargaining Sessions as a Per Se Violation of the NLRA,” provides that a party which secretly records collective bargaining session(s) commits a per se violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Acting General Counsel Cowen emphasized, “[t]he use of surreptitious recordings during the collective-bargaining process is inconsistent with the openness and mutual trust necessary for the process to function as contemplated by the Act.” The memo also notes that because advances in technology have made the ability to record conversations universally available, this capability warrants a clear statement that, in the collective-bargaining context, surreptitious recording is not lawful.
