Yesterday, August 18, the National Labor Relations Board released a memorandum authored by its Acting General Counsel, Lafe E. Solomon. The 24-page memo summarizes the facts and holdings in each of the social media-related cases his office has been involved in over the past year. It doesn't identify the cases by name (although you may recognize many of them from my prior discussions of the cases here and here). Rather, it summarizes the cases by subject matter in an attempt to put them all in perspective. Solomon's stated goal is to "assist[] practitioners and human resources professionals" in drawing some guidance from the Board's reasoning in the various cases.
It will be up to those practitioners and professionals (and the courts that decide future cases) to determine how coherent and correct the Board's emerging collection of determinations is. But kudos to Mr. Solomon for trying to help.
The memo does a good job of summarizing each case. I won't repeat its analysis here, but here are the headers that the memo uses:
- Employees' Facebook Postings About Job Performance and Staffing Were Protected Concerted Activity
- Internet and Blogging Standards and Discharge of Employee for Facebook Posting Were Unlawful
- Employee's Facebook Postings Were Part of Protected Concerted Activity Related to Concerns Over Commissions
- Employees' Facebook Postings About Tax Withholding Practices Were Protected Concerted Activity
- Employee Who Posted Offensive Tweets Was Not Engaged in Protected Concerted Activity
- Bartender Who Posted Facebook Message About Employer's Tipping Policy Was Not Engaged in Concerted Activity
- Employee Who Posted on Her Senator's "Wall" Was Not Engaged in Concerted Activity
- Employee Who Made Facebook Comments About Mentally Disabled Clients Was Not Engaged in Concerted Activity
- Employee's Facebook Postings About Manager Were Individual Gripes, Not Concerted Activity
- Union Violated Section 8(b)(1)(A) by Posting "Interrogation" Videotape on YouTube and Facebook
- Provisions of Employer's Social Media Policy Were Overly Broad
- Employee Handbook Rules on Social Media Policies Were Overly Broad
- Policy's Bar on Pressuring Coworkers to Use Social Media Was Lawful, But Other Provisions Were Too Broad
- Employer's Rule Restricting Employee Contacts With Media Was Lawful
You can read the full memo here.
[Thanks to Cameron Evans and Sean Crotty for alerting me to this memo.]
