Settlement Reached in Complaint for Employee Fired over Facebook Posting
According to a National Labor Relations Board news release, under the terms of the settlement approved by Hartford Regional Director Jonathan Kreisberg, the company agreed to revise its overly-broad rules to ensure that they do not improperly restrict employees from discussing their wages, hours and working conditions with co-workers and others while not at work, and that they would not discipline or discharge employees for engaging in such discussions.
The company also promised that employee requests for union representation will not be denied in the future and that employees will not be threatened with discipline for requesting union representation.
The allegations involving the employee’s discharge were resolved through a separate, private agreement between the employee and the company.
The NLRB’s complaint said its investigation found the employee’s Facebook postings constituted protected concerted activity and the company’s blogging and internet posting policy contained unlawful provisions, including one that prohibited employees from making disparaging remarks when discussing the company or supervisors and another that prohibited employees from depicting the company in any way over the internet without company permission (see NLRB Files Complaint for Employee Fired for Facebook Postings). In addition, the complaint said the employee requested and was denied union representation when asked by her supervisor to prepare an investigative report concerning a customer complaint about her work.