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
Social Networking
NLRB provides further direction on social media policies in recent advice memorandum.
Last month, employers received a little more help from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in formulating social media policies that pass muster under scrutiny from the Board. On October 19, 2012, the Associate General Counsel (AGC) for the NLRB’s Division of Advice provided a useful and well organized opinion in response to a request…
NLRB is finding ways to implement its Employee Rights Notice posting, in spite of legal challenges.
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…
NLRB turns its attention to the elements of an acceptable Social Media Policy.
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…
Not all work-related Facebook comments are protected by the NLRA.
‘NLRB’ ‘Chamber of Commerce’ ‘social media’ ‘Facebook’ ‘Facebook postings’…
Continue Reading Not all work-related Facebook comments are protected by the NLRA.
Supreme Court rules that review of public employee’s text messages was not a Constitutional violation.
[With thanks to Hera Arsen, J.D., Ph.D., in our Client Services group – her more detailed explanation of this case can be found on the firm’s website at www.ogletreedeakins.com.]
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a city police department’s search of an employee/police officer’s text messages was reasonable, and did not violate the…
Company violated federal law by accessing employee’s invitation-only MySpace chat group without authorization.
In an unpublished opinion, a federal district court in New Jersey has upheld a jury verdict in which a company was found liable for violating the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA). The violation occurred when the company’s managers intentionally accessed a “chat group” on an employee’s MySpace account without having received authorization from the MySpace…