Does It Violate The Law To Fire Someone For Their Facebook Comments?

from the just-might... dept

Michael Scott points us to a discussion highlighting a recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that suggests companies cannot fire employees for things like complaining about their boss on Facebook. The NLRB apparently stated that such complaining about the boss is a "protected concerted activity" under the NLRA. It's been a long time since I was up-to-date on my labor law knowledge (even though I do have a degree in the subject), but this seems like a pretty extreme ruling. If people were fired for actually using Facebook to organize collective action, I could understand it, but it's not really clear that just bitching about your boss really qualifies. That said, it's not clear that it's particularly smart to (a) bitch about your boss on Facebook where they might see it or (b) for a company to react by firing any employee who does that. Neither move makes that much sense. The company definitely seems to be overreacting, but to stretch that to say it's a violation of the law doesn't make much sense.

Filed Under: comments, labor law, social networks
Companies: facebook