Legal News

U.S. Workers: I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

By Dionne Searcey

This morning the LB can't get that old Rockwell song from the '80s out of our head. We know our work emails, text messages and instant messages are subject to monitoring by our employers. But now a case brewing in federal court in New Jersey reminds us that our bosses sometimes take their spying to other levels, encroaching on our activities at home too.

The case pits management at a Houston's restaurant against two employees who were complaining about their workplace on an invite-only discussion group on MySpace.com. The case tests whether a supervisor who managed to log into the forum — and then fired employees who badmouthed supervisors and customers there — had the right to do so. Here’s an article in WSJ’s about the surrounding controversy.

Employers don’t need a reason to fire nonunion workers. But state laws in California, New York and Connecticut protect employees who engage in lawful, off-duty activities from being fired or disciplined, according to a report prepared by Katharine Parker and Alexander Grodan of Proskauer Rose LLP. While private conversations might be covered under those laws, none of the statutes specifically addresses social networking or blogging. So it's likely we'll see more of these kinds of legal challenges.

First Amendment attorneys say employees have a right to privacy in their non-work communications with each other. But some caution that anything posted to the Internet, regardless of whether it's behind a password-protected site, is fair game.

LB Readers: Should you get to complain about your boss at home, on your own time, on your own computer without worrying about getting fired?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).