Title: Law on Social Media Policies at Work | Justia
Headings: Social Media Policies
Social Media Policies
Employees Acting Together to Address Work Conditions on Social Media
On Your Own Time: Social Media

Content: Most of these sites reveal individuals’ race, gender, approximate age, and possibly ethnicity or national origin. The EEOC has taken the position that personal information from these sites may not be used to make employment decisions on prohibited bases. Social media can also have an impact on workplace harassment. For example, if your coworker posts sexually harassing or derogatory information about you away from the workplace, your mutual employer can be liable for a hostile work environment if it knew of the posts or if the harassing party used work equipment, such as a work laptop, to do the harassing. Social media is also playing an increasingly strong role in litigation, including employment discrimination litigation. For example, a coworker’s Facebook postings have been used to substantiate an employee’s claim of workplace racial harassment. Employees Acting Together to Address Work Conditions on Social Media
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is a federal law that was enacted in 1935 to protect the rights of employees and employers and to encourage collective bargaining. Enforced by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the law protects the rights of employees to act together to address work conditions, whether or not they are part of a union. The protection covers work-related conversations conducted on social media. For example, if you are part of a group of five employees that participates in Facebook postings about a coworker who plans to complain to management about the group members’ work performance, you are likely to be found to be engaging in protected concerted activity under NLRA.