The NLRB isn’t done sticking its nose into your computer use policies.
You’ll remember a few weeks ago, when the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against a Connecticut ambulance service, alleging that it illegally fired an employee because she posted negative remarks about her supervisor on her personal Facebook page.
The NLRB said the company’s Internet use policies “constitute(d) interference with employees in the exercise of their right to engage in protected … activity.”
Casting a wider net
Now we hear about another such charge, also out of Connecticut. But unlike the first complaint, which dealt with a single employee violating a specific policy, this time the NLRB’s challenging Student Transportation of America’s overall policy on “electronic communication.”
The official “Charge Against Employer” form (you can see a PDF here) pinpoints, among other things, the employer’s rules against using “electronic communication and/or social media in a manner that may target, offend, disparage or harm customers, passengers or employees” and “making demeaning/derogatory statements about the company, fellow employees and customers.”
The earlier charge was settled privately, so we were cheated out of an official decision on the merits of the complaint. We’ll be watching to see how his one plays out.
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