When Can an Employer Fire an Employee for a Facebook Post?

http://ow.ly/5Sun1

Article on Workplace Privacy Blog of Littler's law firm, Privacy and Data Protection Group website, written by Phillip L. Gordon.

This is an excellent article that provides further insight to a recent article posted by Mr. Gordon.  The article describes 3 recent "Advice Memo's" published by the NLRB's Office of General Counsel.  The 3 memo's outline various scenarios regarding Facebook posts, and when they might be said to contain protected speech.  In none of the 3 examples scenarious outlined in the NLRB's opinions was the speech said to be protected, but lacking from the 3 examples were speech aimed at organizing co-workers.

The article quotes the NLRB's adivce as follows:  "In each of the three Advice Memoranda, the General Counsel referred to the same or similar legal standards. These standards also provide useful guidance and include the following

• Protected: When the employee “acting with or the authority of” coworkers (a) “seeks to initiate, induce or prepare for group action,” or (b) “brings truly group complaints to the attention of management.”
• Protected: The employee’s activities are “the logical outgrowth of concerns expressed by the employees collectively.”
• Unprotected: The employee is engaging in activity “solely by and on behalf of the employee himself.”
• Unprotected: The employee’s comments are “mere griping” as opposed to “group action.”"