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Monitoring Employee Social Media Activity

BY Heather Sherrod
May 02, 2015

Last year, the Pew Center released its demographic data on social media usage. The data revealed that ' regardless of age, race, sex, education or income ' nearly 75% of all adults in the United States who use the Internet use social media. See, “Social Media Update 2014.” It is therefore foreseeable that employers would want to regulate and monitor their employees' on- and off-duty social media usage. The time is ripe to examine the pros, cons and pitfalls of monitoring employee social media postings from a legal perspective.

Pitfalls of Monitoring

Because social media is a relatively new trend, with pervasive use occurring only within the last 15 years, the full range of legal implications for monitoring employee social media posts is far from clear. A few potential legal risks, however, have already developed. For example, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has taken a special interest in employer social media regulation. The Board has determined that in many instances the regulation of employees' social media use may chill the exercise of employees' Section 7 rights in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). By way of background, Section 7 of the NLRA grants employees in unionized and non-unionized workplaces “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” as well as the right “to refrain from any or all such activities.”

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