When Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, they probably didn’t imagine all the sticky situations that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) would handle. With social media usage exploding in and out of the workplace, the NLRB has weighed in recently with some rulings that may affect how U.S. employers shape their internal social media policy.
Human Resources professionals often are at the forefront of social media policy in the workplace. According to a survey released by the Society for Human Resource Management, 40 percent of organizations with a formal social media policy rely on their HR departments to create and enforce social media policies. How will the NLRB rulings affect how you shape social media policy in your company?
In a January 2012 Memorandum, the NLRB determined that nearly half of the social media cases they addressed included employer social media policies that were unlawfully broad. Additionally, of the 11 cases involving employee terminations resulting from employee posts on Facebook or other social media sites, the NLRB deemed only six of them as lawful terminations. At issue to the NLRB is whether an employee’s online comments represent a concerted effort to improve working conditions for a collective of employees, or whether the employee is just griping.
GovDocs continues to watch the NLRB closely as we monitor the current April 30, 2012 deadline for the new NLRB posting requirement. As always, our customers will be first to know.
