Case Study

1. The NLRB has made findings regarding the use of employee posts on Social Media sites to discipline or terminate those employees. Typically these cases occur when an employee posts “negative” information about their current employer or boss. Sometimes these are “public” and other times the employer uses “spies” or “fake friending” to see the Facebook page of the employee.

The case I found if about a non-union retail show owner Betty Page in San Francisco, who terminated the three of her employees due to their public posting of work issues on Facebook. The issue started with some employees expressing mismanagement and late closing hours in an unsafe neighborhood where harassment occurs by local street people. This concern was brought to the attention of the manager, owner and human resource department; however, while the manager was out of town, two employees closed the store before closing time and once the manager found out, they were in trouble over the phone. The manager reportedly scolded one of them over the phone and this resulted in the employees venting their feelings toward their workplace on Facebook on how the owner/manager should roll over in her grace, how miserable the workplace is, and how a lawyer will be brought in to solve the issue. After this posting, the manager terminated the employers’ involved with the Facebook posts.

Under Section 7 of the NLRA, the employees were protected from their postings and even though Betty Page argues there were legitimate reasons for firing the employees; the decision was made in favor of employees where the employer failed to prove it would have fired them even if they did not engage in protected concerted activity. The ruling ordered the company to offer the terminated employees full pay and hire them back to their positions. (Devendra & Jackson, 2012)