by Richard L. Samson, Esq., Ogletree Deakins
By now, you have probably heard about the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) September decision in Karl Knauz Motors, Inc. d/b/a Knauz BMW—the board’s first true foray into a Facebook-related firing. On appeal, the NLRB agreed with the ruling of an administrative law judge (ALJ) that Knauz BMW did not violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it fired a salesman for making a derogatory post on Facebook.
However, employers shouldn’t take much comfort in the outcome.
A tale of two posts
The employee, a salesman at a BMW dealership, authored two posts on his Facebook page. The first criticized the way the dealership had handled a sales event introducing a new line of BMWs. Since sales promotions directly affected the salesman’s commissions, the ALJ had no trouble concluding that the Facebook post was protected communication under the NLRA because it related to t...(register to read more)
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