Employee Comments On Social Media

Can someone point me to the rules on employees and/or their family members posting negative comments about their job/supervisor on social media. I was thinking that I had heard at a seminar that the employee has the right to say "Bill is a jerk" but can't say "Bill treats me differently because I am a minority". Is any conversation protected and the employee has a right to post?

Check your Employee Handbook and Code of Ethics. If a family members make a comment about the bank or specifically an employee, not sure how that would be handled.

Read this:

http://www.crowell.com/files/Costco-Wholesale-Corp-and-United-Food-and-Commercial-Workers-Union.pdf

Good luck censoring the internet!

Beyond your own policies, there's not much out there to help you, or give very clear guidance. Employment law hasn't quite figured out social media, and who would win that battle if you ended up in court over it. If your employee is posting this while at work using employer resources, then you've got some acceptable use guidelines to tighten up.

Employee's family: I don't think you have any way to even pretend you can impact what they do. Aside from bringing a defamation suit against them in court, that is.

Read the link above. I think the NLRB made things pretty clear on what an employer can and can not do as far as policies are concerned.

http://www.lcwlegal.com/84234

The validity of the decision (and all other 2012 NLRB decisions) is still up in the air due to politics (will not go any further). The recess appointments process was argued in front of the the Supreme Court in January and we should get a decision shortly.