Blogs and other vehicles of disgruntled employees

System

To add to the previous discussions about disciplining employees for posts to blogs and websites, according to a recent Employment Law Bulletin, after an employee made disparaging remarks to a local newspaper about his employer during a union organizing campaign, and later posted a message on the newspaper's website that said the company "is being tanked by a group of people that have no good ability to manage it", the employer terminated him. An administrative law judge ruled that his Section 7 rights were violated and orderered reinstatement. The NLRB affirmed the decision. However, the Court reversed the NLRB, stating "the employees communication were unquestionably detrimentally disloyal. The damaging effect of the disloyal statements, made by an experineced insider when the company was trying to get up and running under new managment, is obvious..." The comments were not considered related to the ongoing labor dispute. The article continued its analysis by stating "employers have the right to act when employees internally or publically disparage or undermine the employer's, reputation. The employee's freedom of speech rights relate to the employee as a citizen, not usually as an employee.

System

I'm no expert on the NLRA, but that case surprises me. It seems to me that a big part of a union campaign is to criticize management, and that speech would be protected by the NLRA. He must've really crossed the line, but it took a lot of guts to fire him during a union campaign.

I wonder why the court was talking about disloyalty if he was an at-will ee -- don't know if that's in the NLRA or a state law requiring some sort of duty of loyalty.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

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Sounds like you're referring to a case right here in my hometown. There has been a small effort to organize IBM for the past 25 years or so - IBM was founded right here in upstate NY. A few years ago, IBM sold most of the local business to a newly formed organization which proceeded to make drastic changes. The organizing efforts were stepped up a notch or two. When IBM ee's involved in union efforts made public comments, they were essentially ignored by management as flyspecks on the wall. The new organization has fought back.