Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Wednesday signed an Executive Order to protect union members from harassment and intimidation, representing the first state action taken in response to the Supreme Court's Janus decision. The Executive Order prohibits State entities from disclosing personal contact information for state employees amid reports of individuals and organizations harassing union members or prospective union members. The Governor also announced that he will be advancing legislation to prohibit the disclosure of personal information for all public sector employees, including state and municipal employees.
"The Supreme Court's devastating Janus decision was advanced by billionaires and extreme conservatives who want to destroy the labor movement, and now those same forces are shamelessly trying to intimidate public employees into leaving unions," Governor Cuomo said. "In New York, we say no way, no how to union busting. New York is a union state, and as long as I am governor of the State of New York, we will do everything in our power to protect union members and ensure the labor movement continues to deliver on the promise of the American Dream."
Recent media reports indicate that certain far right groups are obtaining contact information of public employees through freedom of information policies and using the information to launch full-scale campaigns against union membership by contacting employees, in some cases at their homes, and presenting them with anti-union information to encourage them to leave their union and discourage union membership. The Janus decision has already been predicted to dramatically reduce public sector union unionization by hundreds of thousands of members.