Getting fired for behavior on social media is nothing new. However, one person to be fired for her Facebook status is responding with a groundbreaking legal case against her former employer.
Dawnmarie Souza filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board that she was illegally fired from her emergency medical technician job at American Medical Response of Connecticut Inc. after posting negative comments about her supervisor on her Facebook page.
Souza wrote on her Facebook page: "Looks like I'm getting some time off. Love how the company allows a 17 [company code for a psychiatric patient] to be a supervisor."
Lafe Solomon, NLRB's acting general counsel said, "It's the same as talking at the water cooler. The point is that employees have protection under the law to talk to each other about conditions at work." Federal law protects employees against retaliation for negative comments made about jobs, working conditions, or managers to other co-workers on their own time.
American Medical Response's attorney, John Barr, said Souza was fired due to two complaints about her behavior and service within 10 days of each other. However, he also added, "If you're going to make disgusting, slanderous statements about co-workers, that is something that our policy does not allow," referring to the company's social media policy.
It seems, however, that it will come down to cause regarding the firing, as the limits to the law protecting worker speech extend only to things such as threatening speech and disrupting the workplace. Criticizing a supervisor on personal time seems to be protected.
It's an interesting position for employers, especially considering that American Medical Response even had a social media policy. Do you have any social media guidelines in place yet? Although they aren't a catchall to prevent all problems, they can at least help set a precedent and foundation for behavior.
What do you think? Is it really similar to water cooler talk? Should it be protected speech? Let us know in the comments below.
The social media person in me thinks you have to be careful, but the employee in me thinks good for her!
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you can get fired for anything. I don't know how she can win this with all the other Facebook/Twitter/whatever firings that have happened already.
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