In October, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against American Medical Response of Connecticut, an ambulance service company, claiming the termination of an employee for posting negative comments about her supervisor to her Facebook page, which drew supportive comments from some of her co?workers, violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
The NLRB argues that the employee's actions were protected and that the company's policy prohibiting employees from posting disparaging comments regarding the company was itself a violation of the NLRA.
Even those employers without union-represented employees are prohibited from creating polices that tend to chill employees in communications regarding wages, hours or working conditions. In this case, the employer's policy prohibiting negative remarks in cyberspace were found to interfere with this employee right.
While this case is not yet binding on employers, Lafe Soloman, the NLRB's acting general counsel, signaled that the NLRB is prepared to aggressively pursue this policy. He told The New York Times that, "This is a fairly straightforward case under the National Labor Relations Act – whether it takes place on Facebook or at the water cooler, it was employees talking jointly about working conditions, in this case about their supervisor, and they have a right to do that." This provides a clear statement that social media policies are going to be a new focus of NLRB enforcement actions.
Employers should be cautious. Before taking disciplinary action for negative cyber comments, determine if the employee's comments relate to their wages, hours or working conditions and whether the comments are, in fact, protected under the NLRA.
