Wk 2 Study:
Social Media Policies, Concerted Activity and HR Management

MGMT410 Human Resource Management

1.) Ethically, and in the spirit capitalism, few should question the right of an employer to discipline an employee who used Facebook, Twitter or other social media to complain about his employer, employer's business practices or to make disparaging comments about his supervisor or co-workers. As an employee, you represent your place of employment. Typically, there are routes to pursue complaints. If not, then it is just a matter of being an adult and discussing the issue to come to a reasonable conclusion.
In this case, we will look at an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in October of 2010. American Medical Response (AMR), an ambulance service in Connecticut, fired an employee for posting deprecating comments about her supervisor on Facebook. Other employees joined in the conversation and added comments of their own. The NLRB alleged that the employee's comments were protected "concerted activity" under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

Section 7 of the NLRA states:
"Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities . . . . "

and that the company's social media policy, which did prohibit employees from making disparaging comments about the company, supervisors and co-employees, was too broad.
Additionally, the union submitted a section 8 for denying an employee union representation, discharging an employee without Union representation, maintaining a standards-of-conduct policy, maintaining a blogging and internet posting policy, and maintaining a solicitation policy. This all stemmed from an on the job incident. (Advice Memorandum)
The case settled before making any administrative or judicial ruling.

2.) I agree and disagree with the argument presented. I tend to agree with the fact that supervision denied an employee the right to representation. Had this representation been granted, the supervisor would have the statement that he desired, or that was common practice. As a matter of fact, the employee may have found that providing a statement, would have cleared her of any wrong doing. Brevity of the eventual statement ultimately leads AMR to believe more in the charges than the employee. I can understand not wanting to provide a statement. It states in the Advice Memorandum that disciplinary action usually followed written statements. I disagree with the argument that the Facebook rant was a concerted activity. First, this was posted on a personal page and not on the union page (if existing). Looking at the content of the posts, there is absolutely no organization concerning union, bargaining, aid, or official union counsel. I further contest that the Internet posting policy is too broad. It clearly states, “Employees are prohibited from making disparaging, discriminatory or defamatory comments when discussing the Company or the employee’s superiors, co-workers and/or competitors.” (Advise Memorandum) Moreover, this “blogging” was only a small portion of the termination reasons. The rest of the cited reasoning was due to lack of professionalism. 3.) Since this case was settled and did not go to court, it will be unreasonably presumed that AMR was wrong on all accounts. Employees that will feel empowered against current supervision should everyone remain in their current positions. The relationship does not appear to have been very strong in the beginning as the Supervisor seemed to be absent for some reason. Facebook comments lead me to believe that few employees were satisfied with current leadership. This situation will only get worse if reorganization does not take place. 4.) On the plus side, I would have AMR address their HRM and lawyers for an exhaustive review of the company and employee policies along with researching and fostering a proper union relationship. Restructuring of the work shifts is a minimal action that must take place—taking caution as not to present a perception of punishment. I would also advise that AMR to provide remedial training for employees concerning the treatment and interaction with customers and associated partner agencies. Alongside of this training, AMR should create an On-the-Job module to guide proper company procedures for work documentation. Although this is coming to fruition with one case, there may be an underlying lack of proficiency amongst all employees. Complacency is evident with the team cited in the documentation and therefore is potentially a sample of other teams. There may be a fermentation of “this is how I do it” rather than “this is proper procedure”. AMR must install some form of review process in place for all organizational operations. Specifically addressing social media, I feel that policy is very appropriate. As stated, an employee is an ambassador to the company. The last thing a business owner wants is negative publicity. Unfortunately, if the public views a member in an AMR uniform they instantly view that impression as the company in aggregate. Even with just the knowledge of an individual being an employee could sway the perception of the organization as a whole. The second reason for keeping and clarifying a social media policy would be the company’s and union’s venues for solving internal issues. Everything should be held to the proper channels. There is policy outlining the way to highlight and correct issues and affairs within the professional realm and scope of the relationship. As I feel that the policy for AMR is enough for a reasonable person to distinguish proper and improper social media etiquette, I would probably “dumb down” the policy and attempt to cover as many specific points as possible. Here is where I would start. When remarking on company or company related topics in social media channels, employees are required to: a. Employees may reference organizational policies when those policies are publicly available on the Internet. Furthermore, they must include a link to that policy in their release, so long as they can do so without giving up their legal rights to engage in protected concerted activities under the NLRA. b. If an employee shares an opinion about company policy, they must provide a disclaimer acknowledging that their personal opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of their employer. c. Without giving up legal rights under the NLRA, employees may not use social media to evaluate the performance of co-workers, supervisors, employers, unions, business partners or vendors. d. Without giving up legal rights under the NLRA, employees may not use social media to condemn or complain about the behavior or actions of a customer. Complaint and Notice of hearing. Case No. 34-CA-12576. Filed 19 Jan 2010. Served 27 Oct 2010. http://www.scribd.com/doc/41010696/American-Medical-Response-of-CT-NLRB-Nov-2010 NLRB Advice Memorandum. Case No. 34-CA-12576. Filed 5 Oct 2010. http://www.scribd.com/doc/66219433/American-Medical-Response-of-Connecticut-GC-Advice-Memo-NLRB-2010