R.I. Gov Orders State Workers’ Addresses Kept Private

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—In a move intended to protect state workers from outside groups pestering them to quit their unions, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has directed state officials not to release their personal contact information. “It has come to my attention that in the wake of the Janus decision, certain organizations have undertaken a coordinated campaign to attack and undermine public-sector unions,” she wrote in a memo to state administration director Michael DiBiase, titled “Protecting the Privacy of State Employees.” Therefore, she said, state agencies and departments should not give out information such as employees’ home addresses, personal email addresses, or home or mobile telephone numbers “unless otherwise required to by law.” The move came after several far-right groups launched a national campaign to tell workers that the Supreme Court had ruled that they didn’t have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. The Mackinac Center in Michigan sent teachers in New York emails titled “New York Union Members Now Have a Choice in Paying Dues,” with a link to a form they could use to pull out of their union. Read more