Social Networking and Your Job
The Facebookfiring case brought by the NLRB settled today. In that case, American Medical Response of Connecticut fired an employee for disparaging a supervisor on Facebook. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a claim against American Medical for violating federal laws that protect an employees right to discuss work related matters online and elsewhere.
This case generated media attention because it was the first case that attempted to set boundries between a person's work and their private online activities. Countries such as Germany have passed laws that prohibit employers from disciplining employees for their private online activities.
Since the NLRB case just settled, we will never know how the case would have turned out. From the reports I have read, the case did force the company to change its policy. The fired employee did not get her job back but the company agreed to change it policy that barred employees from criticizing the company or its supervisors on websites, blogs or in any other communication.
We recently filed a similar case in New York City against J.P. Morgan Chase. In that case, J.P. Morgan fired our client because she blogged and wrote novels under an assumed name. Her blogging and writing did not have any connection to her work at J.P. Morgan. J.P. Morgan had a policy that prohibited this kind of conduct.
We sued J.P. Morgan under New York Labor Law Section 201which prohibits discrimination against employees for engaging in lawful recreational activities outside of work. We filed the case in New York Supreme Court, but J.P. Morgan juste removed the case to federal court. Our first appearance in court is set for March 16, 2011. As far as we can tell, this is one of the first cases of its kind filed in New York.
In our view, an employer should not be able to regulate an employees private lawful recreational activities including a person's right to blog or engage in social networking.
