Beware of these banned social media policies

Beware of these banned social media policies   April 15, 2022 In recent years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been aggressively pushing employers to revise their handbook rules on social media. The NLRB wants to see social media restrictions that don't substantially impact the right to concerted activity. That is, it wants to see social media policies that allow legitimate working condition complaints.   Just last year, the NLRB looked at CVS's social media handbook rules. It found two rules violated the NLRA but allowed several other rules to stand.

 

A social media policy that prohibited workers from disclosing "employer information” on any social media platform.   It included a disclaimer that "nothing in these rules is intended to prevent employees from discussing working conditions.” The NLRB said this rule was not allowed even with the disclaimer. The policy should instead limit only trade secrets or information legally confidential like medical and personal identifying information. For example, you can prohibit employees from revealing social security numbers.

 

A social media policy that required employees to use their real names when discussing workplace issues.   The rule applied to all social media usage, including personal or company sites. The NLRB nixed the rule because the NLRA allows anonymous workplace condition criticism.   As you can see, the NLRB has made it clear that employees are allowed to speak out on workplace issues. However, as the employer, you can require employees to do so civilly and without falsely implying they speak for the organization.   Last November, the NLRB announced that it is reconsidering earlier decisions on profanity and racist language. Those decisions in 2014 seemed to allow employees to use highly offensive speech in conjunction with criticism. The more recent move is no doubt an effort to ensure general civility rules are allowed.

 

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