Workers fired or disciplined for bad-mouthing employers on social-networking sites are fighting back using a decades-old labor law—a new front in the murky battle over what workers can do and say online. Since the rise of Facebook and Twitter, companies believed they had the right to fire employees who posted complaints or hostile or rude comments online about their employers. WSJ’s Melanie Trottman reports on the National Labor Relations Act that protects employees in many cases when they criticize their employers in public forums, such as social-networking sites. Photo: Getty Images But in recent months, workers have sought to solve their very modern employment predicament by using the law that kick-started the U.S. labor movement: the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The law gives private-sector employees certain rights to complain about pay, safety and other working conditions. It doesn’t protect simple griping. More than 100 employers, including a saloon, a BMW dealership and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., have been accused by workers over the last 12 months of improper activity related to social-media practices or policies, according to the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that enforces the law and decides whether employees’ complaints have merit. NLRB lawyers in Washington have decided that about half of the complaints they have reviewed thus far have sufficient merit for the agency to intervene, generally in the form of a civil complaint filed against employers on behalf of employees. Complaints are heard by an NLRB judge, who can order a remedy. (via When a Facebook Rant Gets You Fired - WSJ.com)
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Workers fired or disciplined for bad-mouthing employers on social-networking sites are fighting back using a decades-old labor law—a new front in the murky battle over what workers can do and say online.

Since the rise of Facebook and Twitter, companies believed they had the right to fire employees who posted complaints or hostile or rude comments online about their employers.

WSJ’s Melanie Trottman reports on the National Labor Relations Act that protects employees in many cases when they criticize their employers in public forums, such as social-networking sites. Photo: Getty Images

But in recent months, workers have sought to solve their very modern employment predicament by using the law that kick-started the U.S. labor movement: the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The law gives private-sector employees certain rights to complain about pay, safety and other working conditions. It doesn’t protect simple griping.


More than 100 employers, including a saloon, a BMW dealership and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., have been accused by workers over the last 12 months of improper activity related to social-media practices or policies, according to the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that enforces the law and decides whether employees’ complaints have merit.

NLRB lawyers in Washington have decided that about half of the complaints they have reviewed thus far have sufficient merit for the agency to intervene, generally in the form of a civil complaint filed against employers on behalf of employees. Complaints are heard by an NLRB judge, who can order a remedy. (via When a Facebook Rant Gets You Fired - WSJ.com)

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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