Can employees be fired for online rants about ‘work BS’?
July 29, 2009 by Tim GouldPosted in: Employment law, HR Tech, In this week's e-newsletter - Tech
Just how far can employers go to monitor what employees are saying about the company on the Internet?
Not so far as to peek at a private page on a social networking site, a federal judge has ruled.
The case involved two employees of a restaurant chain who set up a password-protected page on MySpace.
The stated purpose of the page: to “vent about any work BS we deal with … without any outside eyes spying in on us.”
Fired for unprofessionalism
The employer managed to gain access to the page, however, and the two were fired for violating company rules on professionalism, teamwork and attitude.
The two filed suit, claiming the employer had violated federal law by accessing the MySpace page without authorization.
A jury found in favor of the workers, awarding them a total of $17,000 in back pay and damages.
Privacy rights
The take-home? There are limits to the lengths employers can go to keep tabs on what employees are saying. Private, personal pages are off-limits.
Had the messages been sent in an open forum or over the firm’s e-mail system, they’d likely have been fair game.
Cite: Hillstone Restaurant Group v. Pietrylo. For an overview of the case, go here.
Tags: Add new tag, employee blogs, employee comments, employee privacy, social networks
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Amen to that. What people talk about outside of work is their personal business. A company shouldn’t have the ability to fire someone for freedom of speech.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
LB:
I agree, especially since it was a private site. If they were posting lies about the company or other employees on a public site, then I would handle it differently.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I would have liked to see the employer prosecuted for hacking into the employees page! THAT was unprofessional.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I agree, unless they were doing it during working hours. I didn’t see that addressed, and they could have been terminated for non-business use during working hours.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
There’s no freedom of speech issue here. This is strictly a privacy issue. If the two employees engaged in closed discussions about work (whatever the content of those discussions) using their own time and hardware, then the employer is out of bounds. Evidence that a password was needed (and presumably somehow acquired by the employer) is evidence of the desire and intent to establish privacy.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I would like to speak to employers who are monitoring this kind of stuff…where do they get the time to do it?
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I tend to disagree. Though I do not condone unauthorized people (employer or not) hacking into one’s personal webpage, the individuals clearly were unhappy at their job, which could translate into poor performance, bad morale, etc. I wouldn’t want employees with a bad attitude potentially spreading it around my workplace.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I do not agree that it is okay for any employee of a company to slander that said company’s name in any way, shape or form. As the employee of a company there is an expectation (most of the time which is discussed in the handbook) that you will not do anything to ruin the reputation of the company in which you are under employ. I feel that the employer had a right to terminate employment. I personally would not want an employee working for our company who obviously is unhappy about something but instead of addressing it in an apporopriate manner; makes comments on MySpace so the company’s management cannot be given the chance to solve the problem. Sounds like an issue maturity. I wonder what the judge would do if he knew these type of people worked along side him… These types of things can easily effect the whole workforce and it’s not fair to the co-workers of these employees’.
On the note about how the company accessed the webpage…I highly doubt it was hacked into…I am sure that these individuals had friends on there whom worked with them and it made it’s way to management and someone willingly allowed management to view these pages either online or in a printout. Management is not always corrupt….give me a break!
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Our former manager required all Food & Beverage & Housekeeping staff to sign a form promising they woudl NEVER socialize with each other outside the workplace. If caught doing so, termination could result. Is this legal even if the company is privately held?
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
If they dislike the job so much why don’t they be honest and quit?
July 27th, 2009 at 8:39 am
This is for “HRdetroit”, if the company has enough time to access private sites I believe it had enough time to council the disgruntle employees. This not only could have prevented this type of behavior but could raise morale company wide by showing the company cares about its employeees and is responsible enough to actually talk to its employees. There are too many managers that do not know how to deal with people and would rather fire an individual than find out what is going on. This show a complete lack of peopple skills, management skills, and puts the message out there that the company does not care “its our way or the highway”. This adds to poor morale and lower production. Companies say it is nothing personal, but it is, employees spend a large part of thier lives on the job so it does get personel. I believe the company has a morale, civic, and ethical responsibility to take care of those who have taken care of them, and I no longer see it. Since the advent of corporations I has seen no respect for anyone other than the investor, even though it is the hourly employee that ultimately brings home the bacon for the employer.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:50 am
To those of you who are so quick to assume that these employees were so unhappy with their jobs that it would affect their work or that they somehow slandered the name of their employer; haven’t you ever had a bad day at work where you went home or out with friends and just vented? If you were in a public place, others could have heard you…if you mentioned the company name or the name of the person that annoyed you, wouldn’t that be the same?
I would much rather have my employees vent their irritations over minor annoyances on a social networking site or in a journal than be in my office everytime they don’t like/agree with a decision that is made or a policy change that is put into place.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
This will happen more and more as more social networking sites multiply. These comments were a symptom, not the disease. The mgrs just drove this underground and in the future thye will not be able to learn if and what ee’s are unhappy about.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I agree on the point made about venting. I vent to my spouse when I have had a bad day but not so in a way that would slander the company name or do it where others could hear my conversation and most importantly I do not leave a paper trail.
It would be interesting to know exactly what comments were made by these employees and how detailed they may have been for the company to execute termination…
August 5th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I have a question: If someone posts a comment about a former employer in a public forum (say a comments page on a news blog), does that company have any right over that former employee to demand that they take their comment down? Would this be considered slander and something that might be turned into a lawsuit against that former employee? Assuming there was nothing in the employment contract warning against it, and there is no non-disclosure issue.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Danice,
I do not believe there is anything that can be done about what the former employee posted. They are not obligated to the company in any way and that there was nothing in the contract when under the company’s employ to state otherwise…and I believe somehow “Freedom Of Speech” could get played into this scenario…but this is only my opinion. I feel even if it were possible…it would be very difficult. All though not firm, I hope this helps.
August 5th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Thank you HRWI, that is what I expected. The company has a lawyer that had sent an email to this ex-employee asking him to remove the comment (no overt threat of a lawsuit but an implied one) but I couldn’t see what grounds they would have to bring any action against him. Thanks again for your input.
August 5th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Not a problem. Lawyers try to use certain verbage to do exactly that…Imply…I don’t believe there is any legal obligation for that comment to be removed on the former employees part.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Accessing a private site is a bit off limits, I think. But anything posted on a public site is fair game if the poster attaches a company affiliation, work address, etc., to the comments.
I recently saw a myspace public page with the person’s name, place of business (a well known national chain), and work location that contained a lot of offensive stuff on it. Hope that stupid dude gets shown the door.
September 28th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
You should be very careful when trying to limit the speech of individuals, especially those acting together (in concert) to discuss work-related activities or conditions of employment. The National Labor Relations Board has several rulings under its belt in relation to the National Labor Relations Act that show that employers can only prohibit employees speech about work-related matters to a limited degree.