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Posted: 22 Aug 2011 05:20 AM PDT  Late last week, the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) issued to the public their report from General Council, Lafe E. Solomon regarding their social media and corporate cases the NLRB has been involved in over the course of the last year. The 24 page document (downloadable here) provides insights into some of the core areas that the National Labor Relations Board is exploring when it comes to social media at work.The briefing which for those who are not familiar with the employment law and legal process is filled with legal speak and references to previous cases and is standard for legal briefs. It is not exactly light afternoon reading. Upon dissecting the document, one of the NLRB's areas of contention is known as "concerted protected activity." Concerted protected activity is an activity among all employees of an organization that allows them to speak freely and openly among coworkers and leaders when it involves the topics of compensation, management, and conditions of employment. According to the briefing, concerted activity must be engaged in with or on the authority of other employees, and not solely by and on behalf of the employee himself. It also includes circumstances where individual employees seek to initiate or to induce or to prepare for group action. The NLRB's job is to evaluate cases when violations of things like concerted protected activity take place in the workplace. These violations are investigated and are called Unfair Labor Practices or ULP's. These ULP's can be committed by organizations who are non-union, union represented companies, or the labor unions themselves. The NRLB have received a great deal of press for their investigation and involvement in the Facebook Firing case. When it comes to social media, not only is your social media policy extremely important but is so is allowing for concerted protected activities to happen on social media sites like (but not limited to) Facebook.
I've written in length about social media policies and recommended that companies keep their statements as broad as possible, but it's a balance. While I don't recommend naming specific sites because it severely limits an organization, it's also important to consider that a social media policy that is too broad is a fine line. The NLRB warns that including social media as part of your blanket policy statement regarding employees and communication with media, can violate their protected rights. Since the definition of media can be interpreted many different ways, companies will need to provide more specific information to include or exclude non-traditional media forms like social media as well as blogging from their policies. Interestingly enough, prohibiting cameras on company premises by employees is acceptable by the organization. I, however, do not believe that restricting cameras is something that is accomplished consistently at most organizations when you consider the high percentage of mobile and smart phone devices that have both camera and video capabilities. Social media is still a new frontier when it comes to employers. While the NLBR has made efforts to help define employee's as well as employer's rights, there is much case law and court decisions left to be written. It's an ever-evolving piece of the legal landscape.           |
Posted: 22 Aug 2011 04:29 AM PDT  The other day I was shopping with my daughter at a local grocery store. It was after work and we were both so tired that we were a bit giddy. We strolled through the aisles laughing and being a little silly. At the end of one of the aisles, sitting at a make-shift desk on a bar stool sat a man in his early to late fifties. His drawn face instantly wiped out any silliness we were filling. His desk had no logo attached, no giveaways, no food samples, just a shiny, black surface and he looked completely miserable and seriously uncomfortable. I could feel my daughter bristle and the laughter leave her voice as we passed. I knew a horrible sales pitch was coming and, of course, it did. He leaned forward, resting his elbow on the desk and hand extended to me, “Would you like to enter our drawing for $250 store gift certificate? All I need is your name, email address and phone number – and I promise no one will call you, it’s just for the drawing…” I answered to the affirmative, indicating I would be a fool not to enter, right? Then came the pitch. “Do you get the LA Times?” I instantly went into defense mode, “No, I get all the news I need and want online, but thank you,” and I waved my hand, walking on. I had already gone through numerous, too many to count, calls from newspaper reps trying to get me to take the paper. This gentleman was not going to take my wave off sitting down, he stood and proclaimed, “Well, you can’t get all the coupons online,” and then he produced a laminated sales pitch with color pics and pricing. I looked him in the eye and shook my head – “You can get anything online, yes, and even coupons.” He wasn’t too happy with my brush-off and as I walked away he slumped back down in his uncomfortable bar stool. Apparently, I wasn’t the first to tell him this. I felt instantly sorry for him. Caught in a dead-end sales job, selling a product no one wants anymore, and using a worn out sales tactic that really doesn’t work. He might as well have been selling 35 mm film in the digital camera section at a Target or Best Buy. Because you are not ready for the changes in technology doesn’t mean it will slow down for you or wait for you to catch up. It keeps going and you can choose to keep up with the times or be run over by them. That doesn’t mean it is easy or that it will get easier. In this specific case, it means I never read a newspaper unless it is my eight-page community one or the USA Today outside my hotel door. And I am certainly not looking for coupons. Now I check in on Foursquare to see if the particular establishment in which I am shopping is offering a special. Last week I received $25 back from Sports Authority when I spent $100 – with two high schoolers, it took only two pairs of shoes and to hit the hundred bucks. Yes, sir-on-the-uncomfortable-bar-stool, my coupons are online, targeted to my shopping habits and printed out at the grocery store check-out, in the apps I frequent, and in the occasional mailer and unfortunately in emails. Sadly, they are no longer in a newspaper called the Times.  Rayanne Thorn, @ray_anne is the Marketing Director for the online recruiting software company, Broadbean Technology. She is also a proud mother of four residing in Laguna Beach, California, and a contributor for Blogging4Jobs. Connect with her on LinkedIn.      |
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