Guide to Evidence  Section 528. Union member-union privilege

[Privilege not recognized]

In Chadwick v. Duxbury Pub. Sch., 475 Mass. 645 (2016), the Supreme Judicial Court declined to read a privilege for communications between union members and their union into the provisions of G. L. c. 150E. In that case, the plaintiff filed a civil suit against the defendant seeking monetary damages after she was dismissed from her teaching position. The court found that Chapter 150E was designed to “protect the right of public employees to organize and to protect unions and their members from intrusion or control by the employer in the collective bargaining context,” and that the Legislature did not intend “to protect the confidentiality of union member–union communications in a private lawsuit brought by the union member against the employer.” Chadwick, 475 Mass. at 650–651. The court also declined to create the privilege judicially, saying that the Legislature is better equipped to create such a privilege. Id. at 655.