May 9, 2025
(U.S. Fed News)
–
WASHINGTON
,
May 8
-- The House Education &
The Workforce Committee
issued the following news release:
Today, Education and Workforce Committee
Chairman
Tim Walberg
(R-MI) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman
Rick Allen
(R-GA) sent letters to six union leaders expressing concerns about their failure to protect union members' personal information.
The letters to the
United Auto Workers
; the
Service Employees International Union
; the
Communications Workers of America
; the
National Education Association
; the
American Federation of Teachers
; and the
United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America
come following widespread union data breaches that impacted more than a million workers, including the ransomware attack at the
Pennsylvania State Education Association
(PSEA) where the personal information of more than 500,000 individuals was stolen.
In the letters, Walberg and Allen write: "In 2023, the
New York
-based labor union,
UNITE HERE
, experienced a breach which may have put 791,273 members at risk. In this instance, hackers gained most of the same information about union members that was seized in the PSEA breach, and
UNITE HERE
failed to effectively protect workers' sensitive information. In
February 2025
, the union agreed to pay
$6 million
to resolve a class action lawsuit related to the breach."
The letters continue: "Unions are privy to workers' data for many reasons. However, these data breaches call into question whether it is necessary for a union to amass such an array of critical data on its members, particularly when the members are at extreme risk if the information is stolen."
The letters conclude:"[T]he [
National Labor Relations Board
] requires that unions receive personal information for the purpose of communicating with workers who are eligible voters in a union election. This information includes individuals' full names, work locations, shifts, job classifications, home addresses, personal email addresses, and personal cell phone numbers. In order to ensure the union is taking the necessary steps to protect the employee data it collects and to assess whether all this data is necessary, the Committee requests that you provide the following information no later thanMay 22, 2025."
Read the
United Auto Workers
letter here.
Read the
Service Employees International Union
letter here.
Read the
Communications Workers of America
letter here.
Read the
National Education Association
letter here.
Read the
American Federation of Teachers
letter here.
Read the
United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America
letter here.
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