Protecting Public Employees’ Personal Information 

Summary

• Government unions regularly obtain sensitive personal information from employers through their collective bargaining processes. 
• Unions are not responsible stewards of this sensitive information. The Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) was the victim of a recent cyberattack that exposed over 500,000 individuals’ Social Security numbers, medical information, and banking information. 
• Protecting public employees’ personal information is a must. Lawmakers should act to prevent the disclosure of this information during the collective bargaining process. 

Unions and Employee Personal Information

• Government unions seek to obtain employees’ personal information, including home addresses, social security numbers, and cell phone numbers, to gain greater worker access. Unions use it to contact employees about the union’s political and organizing objectives outside the workplace. 
  • Since the 2018 Janus Supreme Court ruling, 14 states enacted legislation requiring public employers to provide employee contact information to unions. 
• Pennsylvania law does not require public employers to provide unions with this information, yet many unions negotiate for it in their collective bargaining agreements. Additionally, some employers voluntarily disclose employees’ personal information to unions. 
• Unions are not responsible stewards of this information. In July 2024, PSEA, Pennsylvania’s largest teachers’ union, fell victim to a dark web cyberattack that exposed over 500,000 individuals’ information. PSEA took more than eight months to disclose the breach, which put at risk members’ Social Security numbers, as well as their banking, medical, and contact information. 
  • Unions in California and New York have suffered similar massive employee data breaches. 

Solutions

• Lawmakers should amend the Public Employe Relations Act to dictate that public employers may not disclose employees’ personal information to unions during the collective bargaining process. 
  • Personal information includes Social Security numbers, driver’s license or state identification data, bank account or payment card data, passport numbers, taxpayer identification numbers, health insurance or medical information, home addresses, home telephone numbers, mobile telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses.
  • Employees are free to disclose this information to unions, but it should not happen without an employee’s expressed consent.