Category Archives: Social networking

Concerted activity, Social networking

Navigating the Intersection of Employment Law and Social Media in West Virginia

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I’m fol­low­ing up on my ear­li­er arti­cle about social media issues in the workplace.

Introduction

In today’s dig­i­tal age, social media plat­forms like Face­book, Twit­ter, LinkedIn, and Insta­gram have become inte­gral to our dai­ly lives. For employ­ers and employ­ees alike, these plat­forms offer oppor­tu­ni­ties for net­work­ing, brand­ing, and per­son­al expres­sion. How­ev­er, they also present chal­lenges when per­son­al posts inter­sect with pro­fes­sion­al respon­si­bil­i­ties. In West Vir­ginia, under­stand­ing how employ­ment law inter­acts with social media use is cru­cial for both employ­ers aim­ing to pro­tect their busi­ness inter­ests and employ­ees safe­guard­ing their rights.

Social Media Policies: A Double-Edged Sword

Employ­ers often imple­ment social media poli­cies to main­tain work­place deco­rum and pro­tect pro­pri­etary infor­ma­tion. These poli­cies may address issues such as:

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National Labor Relations Act, Social networking

The Legal Implications of Employee Social Media Use

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Social media has trans­formed how peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate, but it has also cre­at­ed legal chal­lenges in the work­place. Employ­ers want to pro­tect their rep­u­ta­tion and con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, while employ­ees want to express them­selves freely. The big ques­tion is: how much con­trol can an employ­er legal­ly exert over an employee’s social media activ­i­ty? Let’s break it down.

Can Employers Restrict Employee Social Media Use?

Yes, but with lim­i­ta­tions. Employ­ers can imple­ment social media poli­cies to safe­guard their busi­ness inter­ests, pre­vent work­place harass­ment, and main­tain pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. How­ev­er, they must ensure these poli­cies do not vio­late employ­ee rights under fed­er­al and state law.

For exam­ple, the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Act (NLRA) (29 U.S.C. § 157) pro­tects employ­ees who engage in “con­cert­ed activity”—discussions about wages, work­ing con­di­tions, or union­iz­ing efforts. The Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB) has ruled that employ­ers can­not dis­ci­pline work­ers for social media posts that fall under this pro­tec­tion (NLRB v. Pier Six­ty, LLC, 855 F.3d 115 (2d Cir. 2017)).

Employ­ers can take action against employ­ees for social media posts that:

  • Vio­late com­pa­ny poli­cies (e.g., harass­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion, or con­fi­den­tial­i­ty rules).
  • Con­tain threats, hate speech, or defam­a­to­ry statements.
  • Cause sig­nif­i­cant rep­u­ta­tion­al harm to the employer.

How­ev­er, a blan­ket ban on work-relat­ed social media dis­cus­sions could vio­late fed­er­al labor laws.

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Drew Capuder, Social networking

Please help me!! I’m Tweeting, and I can’t stop!!!!!

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Okay, I got­ta admit that I’ve been skep­ti­cal about the val­ue of Twit­ter. Lawyers tend to delude them­selves into believ­ing that they think impor­tant and deep thoughts. For exam­ple: “I just read an inter­est­ing arti­cle on res ipsa loquitur and its rela­tion­ship to the Philip­pines pro­bate code. Would you please pass the Chardon­nay and the shrimp tem­pu­ra?” And let’s face it, how good are lawyers at being brief? Lawyers are almost con­gen­i­tal­ly inca­pable of express­ing them­selves in 140 char­ac­ters or less.

But my army of mar­ket­ing con­sul­tants (er, all the mar­ket­ing dudes writ­ing on the Inter­net) says Twit­ter and Face­book have real busi­ness val­ue for lawyers (every­one assumes lawyers are too anti-social to actu­al­ly use those sites for their orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed social pur­pos­es). So I’ve done some mod­er­ate­ly care­ful look­ing at Twit­ter and have decid­ed to jump on the band­wag­on. Of course, now that I am on that band­wag­on, I think Twit­ter is the great­est thing since sliced bread. Here it is, my but­ton so you can fol­low me on Twit­ter:

Follow DrewCapuder on Twitter

What am I Tweet­ing about (like most peo­ple above 23, I ini­tial­ly asso­ci­at­ed the word “Tweet­ing” with some­thing that was drip­ping down my leg)? I have only been Tweet­ing a few weeks, so I am still get­ting my sea legs. But here is a list of things I have been and expect to be Tweet­ing about:

  • Employ­ment-relat­ed legal issues. This is the main area of my prac­tice, and most of my Tweets will be on this topic.
  • Legal issues relat­ing to the med­ical indus­try (much of my employ­ment lit­i­ga­tion is in the med­ical industry).
  • Oth­er legal issues which I think may be of inter­est to my “fol­low­ers” (I feel the pow­er cours­ing through my veins).
  • Time man­age­ment and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills. Like most lawyers and busi­ness peo­ple, I am always look­ing for ways to become more effi­cient, so I can spend more time con­cen­trat­ing on deep thoughts.
  • Com­put­er and soft­ware prod­ucts & issues that might be of inter­est to lawyers and busi­ness people.
  • Media issues. I teach a class at Fair­mont State Uni­ver­si­ty on legal and eth­i­cal issues in media, and I am espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in media bias in gen­er­al and specif­i­cal­ly relat­ing to polit­i­cal coverage.
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