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You can't stop employees' free speech on Facebook
- TAGS:American Medical Response, Dawnmarie Souza, enterprise, Facebook, freedom of speech, Insider Content, National Labor Relations Board, NLRB
- IT TOPICS:Emerging Technology, Government & Regulation, Healthcare IT, Internet, Management, Privacy, Web Apps
By Richi Jennings. February 8, 2011.
Employers: it's not legal for you to restrict what employees say about you on Facebook, or other Internet venues. So says the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), after settling a lawsuit with American Medical Response of Connecticut Inc. Let's examine the implications, in The Long View...
The U.S. government -- in the guise of the NLRB -- on Monday settled with a Connecticut-based ambulance company, which had fired an employee for publicly criticizing her boss on Facebook. The NLRB's position is that the employee's speech was protected under federal labor laws. On the other hand, the employer had set out policies that restricted employees.
The case highlights the reality that the Internet is just another medium. Speech on the Internet should be protected in the same ways as it would be if written in a letter to a newspaper, or said in a public place. Read on for more...
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