Employers using social media for recruiting, hiring, discipline or termination decisions need to be aware of the many employment and labor laws that impact these seemingly routine actions. Additionally, as employee use of social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn continues to grow, employers routinely face challenges with balancing the need to maintain a respectful, lawful working environment (both real and in cyberspace) with employee rights to privacy and their rights to engage in protected, concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act, and in some cases, free speech.

Our attorneys have been on top of the latest developments in the social media world for many years now. We regularly counsel employers – both private and public -- on current yet ever-changing employment and labor laws that impact an employer’s ability to use social media or other internet sites as the basis for employment-related decisions, and provide guidance on the best practices for monitoring and responding to employee use of the internet and social media web sites.

The following is a list of some of the issues relating to social media and employment/labor law for which our experienced attorneys have provided counsel and, when necessary, litigation defense:

• The use of social media with recruiting and hiring;

• The role of social media with discipline and termination decisions;

• Development and implementation of social media policies for employee handbooks in a post-NLRB/NLRA world;

• Responding to “nosy” employees who use the internet to do searches on co-workers and supervisors;

• Addressing public employers’ special concerns for the First and Fourth Amendment Rights of their employees on the worldwide web; and

• Best practices for protecting trade secrets and other confidential information that has been leaked by an employee and posted on the internet.