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Us labor board: some limits on employee social media use areillegal by 123wert sdfsf
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Us labor board: some limits on employee social media use areillegal |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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General Counsel Lafe Solomon, in a May 30 memo , examined social media policies at seven employers, includingGeneral Motors and Target Brands, and found six of the policesoverly broad. Solomon, in his third social-media memo since August, found thatthe six policies have provisions that violate Section 7 of theNational Labor Relations Act, which allows employees to join laborunions and to discuss working conditions with each other. Solomon'sopinions say employers cannot prohibit employees from discussingworking conditions, including salary, with coworkers on socialmedia. Some social media restrictions are legal, but several others in theexample policies were not, Solomon wrote.
A policy prohibitingemployees from releasing "confidential guest, team member andcompany information" on social media was overly broad because itcould be interpreted to mean that employees can't discuss theemployment conditions of coworkers, he wrote. A prohibition ondiscussing confidential information in public was illegal for thesame reason, he wrote. Another policy's advice that employees should "think carefully"about friending coworkers on social networking sites discouragesdiscussions of work conditions on those sites, Solomon wrote. Aprohibition on employees posting workplace photos and video or thecompany logo was also overly broad and could include a ban onphotos and video of picket lines with signs containing the logo, hewrote. Although Section 7 addresses labor unions in part, the law appliesto all U.S.
employers, not just unionized ones. The series of memosappear to serve notice to U.S. companies that the Section 7 rulesexist, said Marcia Goodman, a partner specializing in employmentlaw with the Mayer Brown law firm in Chicago. "I think that the NLRB was trying to add to their own relevance,because most people -- most employers even -- think of the NLRB asit only matters if you have a union," she said.
"Fewer and fewercompanies have unions, and therefore, they feel a little ignoredand dusty." Employers have asked for guidance on social media policies, saidNancy Cleeland, director of public affairs for the NLRB. Companies should examine the three general counsel memos on socialmedia and "act accordingly," Cleeland said in an email. In thelatest memo, Solomon includes the social-media policy of Wal-MartStores, which he finds legal. The labor relations act dates back to 1935, and the new series ofmemos are designed to give assistance to employers as theyencounter social-networking employees, Cleeland said.
"We can't provide legal advice, but we can show what we have foundto be acceptable and unacceptable, and explain why," she added."We're applying a 77-year-old law to forms of communication thatdidn't exist when it was written." In Solomon's two previous memos , he focused on recent cases in which companies fired employees forusing social media to discuss working conditions. The agency hasattempted to highlight a large number of cases with a "variety ofscenarios," Cleeland said. The NLRB can order companies it has found to be in violation of thelabor act to rehire fired employees or pay for lost wages. Theboard can also order companies to change their social mediapolicies, Cleeland said. In the May 30 memo, Solomon found that a company's prohibition onemployees commenting on legal issues was illegal because it couldrestrict workers from commenting on employment claims.
A policyrequiring workers to adopt a "friendly tone" online, to avoidpicking fights and avoid inflammatory topics was also a violationof the labor law because discussions about working conditions "havethe potential to be just as heated or controversial as discussionabout politics or religion," Solomon wrote. However, Solomon found a Wal-Mart provision focused on obscenityand harassment to be legal. That policy encouraged employees toavoid posting information that "could be viewed as malicious,obscene, threatening or intimidating, that disparage customers,members, associates or suppliers, or that might constituteharassment or bullying." One of the messages of the latest NLRB memo is to avoid ambiguouslanguage in social media policies and spell out situations toavoid, said Mayer Brown's Goodman. Companies should give "concreteexamples" of social media activity that is allowed and prohibited,she said.
The new memo leaves questions about how companies can prohibitemployees from releasing confidential information onsocial-networking sites, she said. The memo acknowledges thatcompanies have the right to protect "certain" confidentialinformation, but doesn't spell out what that is, she added. The NLRB seems to be on a "journey" to address social media in theworkplace, Goodman said. The three memos, which don't lay outspecific rules, may be confusing to many companies, she added.
"They could just tell you the rules, but that would be too easy,"she said. "They make you figure them out yourself." Barry Bendes, a partner at the Edwards Wildman law firm, disagreed,saying the newest memo gives good examples of what companies shouldand should not do. "What they're doing is giving employers guidance in an area whereit was needed," he said. "Without the guidance you had no ideawhether some of the provisions in your policy would be found to beunlawful." The NLRB is telling employers to be careful about how they restrictemployee social media use, both during and away from work, Bendessaid. Many U.S.
companies don't have social media policies, butit's "only fair" to develop them to give employees guidance, headded. "What [the NLRB is] really saying is, 'don't be ambiguous, don'tspeak in broad terms, don't require clearance for things that arealready lawful,'" he said. Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S.government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter atGrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com. I am a professional writer from Apparel & Fashion, which contains a great deal of information about crew neck sweatshirt , crew neck sweatshirts, welcome to visit!
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