On December 11, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) stoked the fire that has been building around issues related to employees’ use of company e-mail for non-work-related issues. It did so when it held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) supports an employee’s right to use an employer’s e-mail system for non-business purposes,
The line of “Facebook firing” cases is growing longer every month. In October, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld summary judgment in an unpublished opinion in which an individual claimed gender discrimination after he was fired from his job as a daycare center worker. According to the employer, the firing was based on
Recent court decisions related to employees’ online postings have centered on whether disciplinary decisions regarding those postings may violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRA protects certain employee “concerted activities” aimed at discussing or improving working conditions, and precludes interference with such communications, including online messages. However, individuals also have brought other legal
On September 28, 2012, a three-member panel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) affirmed the decision of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) who upheld a car dealership’s firing of a salesperson that was based on a Facebook posting. But it also found a way to include its Notice of Employee Rights poster in the
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects the right of employees to engage in “concerted activities” with each other for the purpose of collective bargaining or in efforts to improve working conditions and terms of employment. These concerted activities can be done in person, or by other methods of communication, including electronic
On May 9, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint alleging that Hispanics United, a Buffalo non-profit that provides social services to low-income clients, violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it fired five employees after they used Facebook to criticize working conditions. This complaint comes on the heels of two
