Weather Service conducts ‘illegal surveillance’ on staff, union says

If it’s on Facebook, can it be secret? Members of the National Weather Service Employees Organization (NWSEO) thought they had a secret Facebook page that was available only to them. But not only did National Weather Service (NWS) management officials know about the page, they accessed it and made scornful comments about the postings, according to the union. That amounts to “illegal surveillance” of union activities, according to the labor organization’s complaint filed July 27 with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

In the past six months, Weather Service officials “engaged in the surveillance of internal union communications about and discussions of protected activities” on the labor organization’s “ ‘secret’ (that is, ‘members only’) Facebook page,” according to the complaint. Susan Buchanan, an NWS spokeswoman, said the agency does “not conduct surveillance on our employees’ private social media accounts, including NWSEO’s members-only Facebook page.” Unlike other cases of surreptitious surveillance, managers did not try to keep their spying secret, the union’s complaint alleges. It says management officials made critical comments about some of the Facebook postings to stifle the commentary.