In a recent Law360 article, "NLRB Social Media Push Looms Large for Hospitality Sector" (subscription required), our colleague Mark Trapp comments on the importance for unionized and non-unionized hospitality employers to review their social media policies.
Following is an excerpt:
With the National Labor Relations Board increasingly interjecting into non-union issues, hotels, restaurants and other labor-intensive hospitality companies need to brace for potential claims and tread carefully when crafting social media policies for employees, experts say.
Over the last few years, the NLRB has been extending its reach — traditionally centered on union or collective bargaining matters — to include the actions and speech rights of groups of employees, even when those groups are not unions, according to a report released Wednesday by the the Cornell Institute for Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations. In these actions, the NLRB often targets companies' broad social media policies for limiting the rights of employees to band together over wrongful job conditions, wages or terms, experts say.
"Certainly you want to take a look at your policies for social media, take a look at your handbook ... and take a look at disciplinary policies," said Mark Trapp of Epstein Becker & Green PC. "It used to be that you didn't have to pay attention to that as a non-union employer, but now you do."