As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog, on August 18, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board’s Acting General Counsel issued a report discussing fourteen social media cases recently decided by the Board. The cases highlighted in the report offer insight regarding how the NLRB will handle various social media issues in the future.
Read the full post, which provides an overview of several of the cases highlighted in the NLRB’s report.
As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog, Connecticut recently became the latest state to pass a law regulating employer use of credit reports. The law, which goes into effect on October 1, 2011, prohibits employers from requiring employees or prospective employees to consent to the employer requesting their credit report as a condition of employment. The full post includes a discussion of the exceptions to this restriction.
Read our previous posts on regulatory scrutiny of employee credit checks and a similar Illinois law that went into effect on January 1, 2011.
As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives Blog:
The EEOC recently released an informal discussion letter suggesting that employers may be obligated to do more than just maintain a separate file for employee medical records, especially when those records are in an electronic format. Both the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”), as amended, and the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”) require employers to maintain a confidential medical record, which is separate from the employee’s other personnel file(s), for information about the employee’s medical conditions, medical history or “genetic information.” The statutes do not, however, specify how such records are to be maintained or what level of security must be in place to protect the confidentiality of medical or genetic information.
As reported in Hunton & Williams’ Employment & Labor Perspectives blog, two unfair labor practice complaints recently issued by National Labor Relations Board regional offices in Buffalo and Chicago illustrate how closely the NLRB is scrutinizing employers’ termination decisions that are allegedly related to statements employees made on social media. Read the full entry.
As reported in Hunton & Williams’ Employment & Labor Perspectives blog:
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) regional offices addressing complaints involving employers’ social media policies must seek advice from the NLRB’s Division of Advice before taking any action. The memorandum, issued by the NLRB’s Office of the General Counsel on April 12th, added social media disputes to the list of matters that must be submitted to the Division of Advice. The Division of Advice is responsible for issuing opinions on difficult or novel labor issues.
As reported in Hunton & Williams’ Employment & Labor Perspectives blog:
An employer who allegedly posted to an employee’s Facebook and Twitter accounts without her consent may face liability for its actions, according to a federal judge in Illinois. The case is Maremont v. Susan Fredman Design Group, Ltd., in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26441, March 15, 2011).
The Plaintiff, Jill E. Maremont, worked as the Director of Marketing, Public Relations and E-Commerce for an interior designer and her company, Susan Fredman and the Susan Fredman Design Group, Ltd. (Defendants). Maremont contends she created a “popular personal following” on Facebook and Twitter, and she also created a company blog called “Designer Diaries: Tales from the Interior.” Continue reading…
As reported in Hunton & Williams’ Employment & Labor Perspectives blog:
A commonly used pre-employment screening method–conducting credit checks–has drawn increased scrutiny in recent months. Legislatures at the state and federal levels are considering bills that would limit employer use of credit checks. Moreover, two recently-filed lawsuits, one of which was filed by the EEOC, seek to challenge the use of pre-employment credit checks in hiring decisions.
Reporting from Israel, legal consultant Dr. Omer Tene writes:
In a sweeping, 91-page decision issued last week, the Israeli National Labor Court severely restricted employers’ ability to monitor employee emails. In its opinion, the Court made strong statements concerning the suspect nature of employee consent and mandated the implementation of principles of legitimacy, transparency, proportionality, purpose limitation, access, accuracy, confidentiality and security. The Court stated that, given the constitutional status of the right to privacy, exemptions to the Privacy Protection Act, 1981, must be interpreted narrowly.
On January 19, 2011, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in National Aeronautics and Space Administration v. Nelson, finding that questions contained in background checks NASA conducted on independent contractors are reasonable, employment-related inquiries that further the government’s interests in managing its internal operations. Stating that “[t]he challenged portions of the forms consist of reasonable inquiries in an employment background check,” the Court reversed a Ninth Circuit decision that the questions NASA asked of the contractors invaded their privacy.
As reported in Hunton & Williams’ Employment & Labor Perspectives blog:
A recent New York state trial court decision, Romano v. Steelcase Inc., et al., is representative of a recent trend of parties seeking, and courts permitting, discovery of information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Rejecting the plaintiff’s privacy concerns, the Romano court held that such information is discoverable because the plaintiff’s damages are at issue. The court ordered the release of the plaintiff’s postings, pictures and other information on the social networking sites.
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