Memorandum
To: Supervising Attorney (Francona)
From:
Date: 8/6/2021
RE: National Labor Relations Act and Social Media Activity
ISSUES PRESENTED
Did the Ward City School District infringe Section 7 and 8(a) (1) of the National Labor
Relations Act and undertake a prejudicial labor decision by terminating Mr Landry
because of his post on Facebook?
SHORT CONCLUSION
The Ward City School District and its board violated Section 7 and 8 (a)(1) of the NLRA
by undertaking a prejudicial labor decision of terminating Mr. Landry because of his
Facebook post.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
After learning of the impromptu resignation of Mr. Jackson, Mr. Landry became
frustrated because he had to teach an extra class contrary to the Union’s guidelines. He
too to Facebook and posted about his frustrations, which according to the Ward City
School District violated their Union’s charter. In recent cases that caught the news
media's interest, the NLRB applied the statute to guarantee a range of employee exercises
like the board’s secured employee conversations on all types of media including social
media sites like Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter, about salaries, working hours,
and other employment conditions, association coordinating, and direct communication.
On the other hand, the protests of out-of-line labor practices included SMPs or social
media policies that promote secured discourse under the statute and, on certain occasions,
the discipline and release of workers occupied with deliberate exercises ensured under the
Act. In the two cases, the board clarified that the correspondence on social media stages
depends on the very norms as conversations that occur physically at workplaces.
APPLICABLE LAW
The relevant law applicable is section seven and eight of the Act and its provisions on
employee conduct on social media and rules surrounding the same, based on Mr Landry’s
case.
DISCUSSION
The NLRB, - National Labor Relations Board, is an autonomous federal agency that
enforces the NLRA Act, which defends employee rights to act together and address work
conditions with or without union representation. Protection extends to work-related
discussions conducted on social media.1 Inspite of the transparency of such cases, an
astonishing total of supervisors remain uninformed regarding the Act’s insurance of
work-related grievances that affect non-association employees within the education
sector. Such an oversight is capable of trapping any person/entity/institution in an
excessive and tedious legal battle that would normally have been handily kept away if
directors had a comprehensive and extraordinary experience with employment and labor
law rules.
The NLRB responds to off-labor works on identifying with the violation of employees'
section seven rights by expecting an employer to handle improper discipline or release
activities through the restoration of workers to their previous position as they would have
been with full back pay, as well as damages for any times of suspension or release.
Besides, the board also expects proprietors to post notifications of members’ rights under
the Act and explain that the employer does not wish to submit unmerited labor rehearses
later on. Concerning overbroad policies and related employer policies, the board expects
amendments to fit inside the provisions of the Act.2 The board necessitates that
notification is displayed illustrating worker rights under the Act; such information that
expresses the employer's policy is reviewed to remedy pain points and that the employer
will not submit unreasonable labor repeats later on. If employers contact employees via
email, the board requires such notification to be shipped off the employees' email. To
comprehend the board’s oversight of employer policies, one requirement to investigate
the developing number of its choices, it’s rundown reports in regards to social media
issues deliberated by the its division of advice (DOA), just as warning assessments from
the DOA that fill in as direction to provincial workplaces on the branch of knowledge of
obstruction with secured operation on online media. Such reports, choices, and memos
articulate the sorts of online media, privacy, and other prohibitive procedures violate the
Act ensured deliberate exercises. Moreover, they stress the board's eagerness to revise
employer policies on social media that violate ensured worker discourse, in any event,
when employers do not authorize such policies. The main ten cases will be considered in
sequential request, featuring the central points of interest and significant rules for
upcoming direction to institutions and their employees.3 Although the board is at present
confronting legal difficulties to its abilities in authorizing the Act, it together with its
AGC or acting general counsel keep up with that employers should maintain the policies
of the Act and revise policies and different guidelines under section seven exercises, as
communication on online media.4
Within the main similar case, the board gave an objection against an employer, for the
suspension and termination of a negative worker remarks concerning her administrator on
her page on Facebook. Federal offices affirmed that employers defended the fired worker
1
"The NLRB And Social Media | National Labor Relations Board". 2021. Nlrb.Gov. https://www.nlrb.gov/aboutnlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/the-nlrb-and-social-media.
2
Steven Greenhouse, Even if it Enrages the Boss, Social Net Speech is Protected, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 21, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/technology/employers -social-media-policies-come-under-regulatoryscrutiny.html (quoting NLRB Chairman Mark G. Pearce that “[m]any view social media as the new water cooler”).
3
O'Brien, C. N. (2013). The top ten NLRB cases on Facebook firings and employer social media policies. Or. L. Rev.,
92, 337.
4
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act
for her Facebook posts and for mentioning her association delegate in an investigatory
meeting that prompted discipline. In particular, the Labor Board kept up with that the
employer's instructions on publishing content to a blog and online posting that includes
social media usage, guidelines of direct identifying with examining collaborators and
bosses, and requesting and appropriation, were overbroad, meddling with employees' all
in all correct to participate in joint exercises for shared guide and insurance under chapter
seven of the Act. The board, as the federal office that authorizes the legal privileges of all
workers protected by the Act—not simply the individuals who have a place with
associations—flagged that it is prepared to indict organizations with policies that unduly
meddle with worker communication about work-related issues like salaries, working
hours and working conditions on online social media.5 Thus, the above scenario notifies
institutions that guidelines influencing worker communication via media like email and
social media during nonworking hours, ought to be looked into to guarantee that they do
not violate the Act.6
CONCLUSION
While an institution or employer is qualified to have policies concerning internet
involvement, the laws ought to be painstakingly created to allow workers to examine
section seven. Online social media is currently an additional for communication. The
internet is where workers accumulate for peer conversations concerning employment
agreements. Employers are very much educated to diagram what types regarding on the
web interchanges harm the organization and, subsequently, what direction will bring
about discipline and release, while clarifying that employees might, in any case, take part
in ensured purposeful exercises.
Except disturbing wrongdoing, employees ought to participate in purposeful exercises
individually if at work and indeed on their PCs or compact gadgets. An online social
media and communication policy ought to illustrate that there is no goal to meddle with
worker rights under section seven and illuminate the implication that workers are allowed
to examine salaries, working hours, and conditions just as an issue of shared guide or
security individually and during a non-working time like breaks and lunch inside set up
working hours. Considering the current creation of the board, employers should revise
their policies, so where workers are permitted to utilize organization hardware to convey
social media for nonworking related communications, are likewise ready to use
something very similar for purposeful exercises on free hours without a balancing
genuine professional reason of the employer, as this might a future policy.
5
Myers, C. (2014). The new water cooler: Implications for practitioners concerning the NLRB's stance on social
media and workers’ rights. Public Relations Review, 40(3), 547-555.
6
Hemenway, A. (2012). The NLRB and Social Media: Does the NLRB Like Employee Interests. J. Corp. L., 38, 607.