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The NLRB's Assault on Companies' Social Media Policies

BY Bruce E. Buchanan
February 26, 2013

Over the past two years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been aggressively pursuing employers in relation to their social media policies and the discharge of employees who utilized social media to criticize their employers about wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment. In this article, I discuss the NLRB's views on social media policies, through two recent NLRB decisions, and the eyes of the NLRB's General Counsel and its Administrative Law Judges. (Due to space restrictions, I do not focus on discharges related to social media, but leave that for another article.)

Background

Many casual observers of the NLRB might wonder how it even has authority over social media-related cases. The answer is simple ' Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act states that employees have the right to engage in “concerted activities” for “mutual aid or protection.” Moreover, the maintenance of work rules, such as those concerning social media, that reasonably tend to coerce employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights, violate Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA.

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