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Social Media Policies: Know Your Rights

Posted on October 6, 2021October 6, 2021 by Dan Matthews

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The idea of using social media in the workplace is a very 21st-century problem — one that many previous generations would have never had to deal with. In many aspects, social media defines parts of our lives. It is a way to document how we feel about certain things and a way to connect with people from across the globe on issues.

Yet here we are. Often being asked by our employers to maintain a social media presence for work, whether we want to or not.

For others, it isn’t even that our employers require a social media account. Rather the issues stem from the need to be abundantly cautious about how they act on social media. One post that is regarded in bad taste or one drunken picture from college that unexpectedly crops up could ruin a career.

Employee social media rights have become a central workplace issue. Knowing your rights when it comes to your employer and social media is essential.

Review Company Policy

Arguably the most important thing you can do to better understand your rights as an employee is to review company policy. Today, many companies that require employees to work online will have some social media rules as a condition of employment. Some examples of company policies that are commonly used include things like:

Laying out guidelines for company responses to negative social media posts by customers on the company feeds
Provide clear policy on who owns certain company accounts. For instance, does your work Twitter account belong to you since it is in your name or does it belong to the company since you set it up as an employee?
Provide clear rules for transparency and honesty in marketing strategies
Clarify if comments about the company in personal accounts are off-limits
Set expectations for social media use in personal accounts of employees related to political and social issues.

If a company states that your personal account is protected, then it should be. Up until that point, it can be pretty murky. Many professionals would recommend not posting something blatantly controversial, especially if you aren’t sure of the company policy.

If your company doesn’t have them, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re off the hook. Instead, it means you should contact HR about getting something reasonable on the books before someone gets in trouble.

Work-Related vs Non-Work-Related

It is important to remember that although everyone has the First Amendment right to free speech, it gets a little more convoluted when it comes to social media. First Amendment rights are not always protected in private settings. For instance, you would never go to work and say racist things and expect not to get in trouble. Likewise, you wouldn’t have drinks with a coworker and slam your boss if you thought that information might get back to him and get you in trouble. Treat social media the same way as any other interaction that would occur in person.

Going off of that general guideline is likely to more or less keep you out of trouble. But there are the occasional posts that seem like they aren’t a big deal, but turn out to be very controversial. Here it can be important to remember where you are posting from. Using social media on a work account, from a work computer, or on a work-provided cell phone can spell trouble without question. Avoid using personal accounts in those situations at all costs.

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Social media policies for individuals in workplaces are still relatively new. Many of the protections and rights are still being worked out by the courts. For that reason, it is always worthwhile to review company policy and get clarification on your rights. If you are unsure, it is always better to play it safe, even on your personal accounts.

This blog is printed with permission.

About the author: Dan Matthews is a writer, content consultant, and conservationist. While Dan writes on a variety of topics, he loves to focus on the topics that look inward on mankind that help to make the surrounding world a better place to reside. When Dan isn’t working on new content, you can find him with a coffee cup in one hand and searching for new music in the other.

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Corona-fied: Employers Spying on Remote Workers in Their Homes

Posted on September 24, 2020October 9, 2020 by Workplace Fairness

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The future of work is here, ushered in by a global pandemic. But is it turning employment into a Worker’s Paradise of working at home? Or more of a Big Brother panopticon?

Disturbing increases in the use of digital surveillance technologies by employers to monitor their remote workers are raising alarm bells. With the number of remote workers surging as a result of the pandemic—42 percent of U.S. workers are now doing their jobs from their kitchens, living rooms, and home offices—a number of employers have begun requiring their workers to download spying software to their laptops and smartphones. The goal is for businesses to monitor what their remote employees do all day, to track job performance and productivity, and to reduce so-called “cyber-slacking.”

Business software products from Hubstaff, which tracks a worker’s mouse movements, keyboard strokes, webpages visited, email, file transfers and applications used, are surging in sales. So are sales for TSheets, which workers download to their smartphones so that employers can track their location. Another product, called Time Doctor, “downloads videos of employees’ screens” and uses “a computer’s webcam to take a picture of the employee every 10 minutes,” NPR reports. One employee told NPR, “If you’re idle for a few minutes, if you go to the bathroom or… [to the kitchen], a pop-up will come up and it’ll say, ‘You have 60 seconds to start working again or we’re going to pause your time.’”

Another system, InterGuard, can be secretly installed on workers’ computers. The Washington Post reports that it “creates a minute-by-minute timeline of every app and website they view, categorizing each as ‘productive’ or ‘unproductive’ and ranking workers by their ‘productivity score.’” Other employers are using a lower-tech approach, requiring workers to stay logged in to a teleconference service like Zoom all day so they can be continually watched.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, one surveillance company, Awareness Technologies, says it has seen its sales triple. Executives at Hubstaff and Teramind also say demand for their companies’ monitoring products has tripled. One website showing “Employee Monitoring Software in the USA” lists nearly 70 companies with products for sale.

Outdated Laws Keep It Legal

Despite this surge in online surveillance activity, currently, it is a legal practice in the United States. Individual state laws vary over whether companies must inform workers that they’re using tracking software, but in reality, “When you’re on your office computer, you have no privacy at all,” says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute. “Anything and everything you do is probably monitored by your boss.”

Current laws are vastly outdated, as they are based on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, when the primary form of electronic communication was the telephone. That was a distant time when desktop computers were first becoming popular, and smartphones were not yet a glint in Steve Jobs’ eye.

And now, in response to the coronavirus outbreak, companies such as Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Salesforce have developed intrusive applications that enable companies to continuously track the health status of their employees. Often they include a system for tracking contacts between employees within an office, and a mobile app for collecting information about their health status. A number of large U.S. employers, including Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and Starbucks, are taking the temperatures of their employees before they are allowed to work. Certainly, employers have a legitimate need to collect the necessary data to safeguard their workplaces, especially in response to a pandemic. But what is the appropriate level of “health intrusion”? How voluntary is the participation of workers, and who gets to decide?

The reality of this constant Big Brother digital spying in people’s homes is that dozens of remote workers are starting to complain that they feel burned out by this pressure. A recent Fishbowl survey of major companies’ employees found that three-quarters of those polled were opposed to using “an app or device that allows their company to trace their contacts with colleagues.” Yet many fear they will be branded as a troublemaker or lose their job if they speak out. And since remote workers hardly see each other—and increasingly may not even know many of their coworkers—these factors will make labor organizing and collective worker empowerment increasingly challenging.

U.S. labor unions have been slow to advocate for updating these outdated laws. One union, the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, has been working to blunt the worst of the abuses. Labor-friendly media have been missing this story as well. Not only should unions advocate to update the laws and limit digital spying, but why not also demand that home-based workers be compensated by employers for use of their house, utilities and the internet? And that the employer remains responsible to provide equipment and a safe workplace, even in the home?

Remote Workforce Growth—The New Normal?

As the number of remote workers rises, concerns are growing among labor advocates that this is quickly becoming the “new normal.” One survey by Gartner, Inc. found that 74 percent of companies intend to keep some proportion of their workforce on permanent remote status, with nearly a quarter of respondents saying they will move at least 20 percent of their on-site employees to permanent remote status. Google/Alphabet recently announced it will keep its 200,000 full-time and contract employees home until at least July 2021, and half of Facebook employees will work from home over the next decade. Hub International, a global insurance brokerage, has shifted 90 percent of its 12,000 employees to remote status. “Teleperformance, the world’s largest call-center company, estimates that around 150,000 of its employees [nearly half its global workforce] will not return to a physical worksite,” according to Social Europe.

Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom says:

“A recent separate survey of firms from the Survey of Business Uncertainty that I run with the Atlanta Federal Reserve and the University of Chicago indicated that the share of working days spent at home is expected to increase fourfold from pre-COVID levels, from 5 percent to 20 percent.
“Of the dozens of firms I have talked to, the typical plan is that employees will work from home one to three days a week, and come into the office the rest of the time.”

But not all at-home workers are created equal. Bloom continues:

“Taken together, this is generating a time bomb for inequality. Our results show that more educated, higher-earning employees are far more likely to work from home—so they are continuing to get paid, develop their skills and advance their careers. At the same time, those unable to work from home—either because of the nature of their jobs, or because they lack suitable space or internet connections—are being left behind. They face bleak prospects if their skills and work experience erode during an extended shutdown and beyond.”

The future of work has become more uncertain than ever. In this “brave new world,” labor unions and advocates must ensure that the pandemic is not misused by businesses as an excuse to worsen conditions for employees who work out of the office. It is easy to imagine how the lines between ‘remote’ work and ‘platform’ work could blur, leading to more ‘Uberization’ as work devolves into ‘independent’ contracts, bogus self-employment and ‘pay-by-project’ arrangements that can be easily outsourced to remote (and lower-cost) destinations.

Worker advocates must push for a strong and modern legal data protection framework. And that should include an effective enforcement system against privacy abuse that disincentivizes illegal spying behavior. Remote work should not become a downward slide toward a Big Brother panopticon that penetrates into society ever more deeply, including into our homes.

This blog originally appeared at Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute, on September 23, 2020.

About the Author: Steven Hill (www.Steven-Hill.com) is the author of Raw Deal: How the Uber Economy and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers and Expand Social Security Now: How to Ensure Americans Get the Retirement They Deserve.

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Wild West: Firms interpret California’s privacy law as they see fit

Posted on January 13, 2020January 13, 2020 by Katy Murphy

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For all the angst it’s already caused in corporate America, the strongest data privacy law in the nation landed on the West Coast last week with a relative whimper. But the flurry of legal notices that accompanied the California Consumer Privacy Act point to regulatory and political drama ahead this election year.

The landmark California law — which has put Sacramento at the center of the national tech regulatory storm — has now been in effect for one week, giving residents the right to know what information companies collect about them and some measure of control over that data.

But a sampling of major retail, financial services and media websites found that companies are reacting to the Privacy Act in different ways based upon their own interpretations of the complex law and its unresolved regulations.

The patchwork of industry responses to California’s new privacy regime, which won’t be enforced until at least July 1, ensure the law will remain in dispute for many months to come. Adding to the uncertainty, a wealthy privacy champion is preparing a ballot initiative to rewrite the Privacy Act, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra expects legal challenges, and Congress is under intense industry pressure to pass a federal standard that would supersede state laws like California’s.

Perhaps the most visible change California promised to deliver to those tired of being tracked online is easy to miss, even if you are looking.

The law requires companies that sell consumers’ personal information to post a prominent “Do Not Sell My Info” link. But large retailers like Walmart and Lowe’s put their “Do Not Sell” links in the same footnote-like font and location commonly used for privacy policies. And they were nowhere to be found on other websites, such as Whole Foods Market, Albertsons-owned grocery stores, Visa or Bank of America. Those companies assert elsewhere on their sites that they don’t sell consumer data, which would mean they don’t have to include the links.

Likewise, “Do Not Sell” buttons or links do not appear on Google, Facebook, or Amazon’s homepages. Those companies — including two of the biggest players in online advertising and data collection — also contend that’s because they don’t sell consumer information anyway.

“We never sell your personal information,” read a pop-up window last week on Google search.

A “Do Not Sell” link appears at the bottom of the New York Times and Washington Post homepages, at least in California. The Los Angeles Times’ link takes readers to a page with information about their new rights — and a warning. Blocking the sale of one’s information also stops personalized advertising, it says, “an essential source of revenue” that “allows us to consistently deliver the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalism you’ve come to expect from the Los Angeles Times and its affiliates.”

(POLITICO’s homepage did not include such a link as of Wednesday. Brad Dayspring, the company’s vice president for marketing and communications, said that “POLITICO’s privacy policy is being updated and operational procedures to ensure compliance with CCPA are being finalized and will be visible in the coming days.”)

Spotify concedes in its California privacy notice that “it is currently unclear whether the use of certain types of advertising partners would be considered a sale under CCPA.” The company doesn’t offer a “Do Not Sell” link but gives listeners a chance to opt out of tailored advertising.

None of this hedging is a surprise to Jennifer King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. That’s especially true, she said, given that the Privacy Act won’t be enforced until July 1 and regulations are still being finalized.

“There is a six-month window where we’re going to see a lot of wiggling around,” King said. “No one wants to have to admit they’re selling if they can work their way around the regulations.”

As companies, consumers and the attorney general wrestle with the new law this year, here are other things to watch for:

— Cracking down: Only California’s attorney general will have the power to sue companies for most CCPA violations, and not until July 1, after the final regulations are expected to be released. But Becerra might weigh in earlier on the type of data-sharing that constitutes the sale of personal information under the law, and other murky areas. He also has repeatedly warned that the first six months will not be a free period, and that he can retroactively ding companies for early violations. Becerra recently told reporters that he will prioritize mishandling of children’s data. Companies may not sell data about children under 16 without permission from teens or the parents of young children.

— Opt-out outsourcing: The CCPA and its proposed rules allow for services that would help consumers exercise their privacy rights even if they are not inclined to spend their free time hunting down links and filling out forms. Brent Blackaby, who hails from the digital strategy and marketing world, is already beta testing such services for the Bay Area startup he co-founded, Confidently.com. Common Sense Media, a consumer advocacy group, did some of the legwork through its public awareness campaign by posting partially filled-out CCPA request forms for the publishers of three apps popular with kids: Snapchat, Spotify and TikTok. And GitHub has posted a directory of crowd-sourced links to dozens of companies’ CCPA pages.

— Data broker registry: How can you tell a company you’ve never heard of to stop selling your data? By the end of the month, those in the business of buying and selling details about people with whom they have no direct relationship will have to register annually on a new public database managed by the California attorney general. The registry, inspired by a similar one in Vermont, is live — but had no businesses listed — as of early Tuesday. Data brokers that don’t register by Jan. 31 will face fines of $100 per day.

— Already rewriting the rules: Just as the new law finds its footing, Californians might rewrite it. Bay Area developer Alastair Mactaggart, whose previous initiative pursuit led to the CCPA, is leading a new effort to qualify a November ballot proposal that would change the law. The initiative would create a separate agency to enforce the state’s privacy regime; add restrictions on the use of sensitive personal information; and prevent the Legislature from watering down the law, among other revisions. Tech and telecom companies have not taken public positions on the initiative, nor has a coalition of consumer privacy groups. Of course, businesses could just be waiting to see if proponents manage to qualify the initiative, as expected, before spending big to defeat it. Mactaggart said he is getting early reports that “folks are eager to sign” and “no one is saying no.”

This article was originally published at Politico on January 19, 2019. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Katy Murphy covers consumer regulations with a focus on data privacy for POLITICO California. Before joining the team, she was a one-woman Capitol bureau for the The Mercury News and East Bay Times and previously covered K-12 and higher education for more than a decade, based in the Bay Area.

A Chicago-area native, she graduated from the University of Notre Dame and had stints in Puerto Rico and Indiana before moving west. She lives with her husband and young daughter and has memorized every episode of Peppa Pig. In her copious spare time, she enjoys reading fiction, taking scenic hikes that aren’t overly strenuous and glamping in the mountains with people who really know how to cook.

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Corporate Spies Keep An Eye On Organized Labor

Posted on November 20, 2019 by Tom Conway

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Google’s computers are spying on its workers.

Anytime a Google employee uses an online calendar to schedule a meeting involving more than 100 co-workers, management gets an alert—a great way for the anti-union corporation to sniff out union organizing efforts.

Lots of other employers also would like to put union organizing campaigns under surveillance. And they’ll have their chance if the National Labor Relations Board gives corporations a free hand to snoop on employees, as two of the board’s right-wing members, John Ring and Marvin Kaplan, evidently want to do.

Ring and Kaplan want to reconsider the longtime ban on labor spying. It’s a sleazy idea, but typical for these two. They’re part of a three-member Republican cabal that’s taken over the board and issued a string of decisions eviscerating workers’ rights and giving ever more power to corporations.

Because of them, for example, employers can change working conditions in the middle of a contract, fire employees for engaging in what was previously considered protected union activity and misclassify employees as contractors, who aren’t protected by the National Labor Relations Act. Allowing corporations to spy on workers would be one more gift the pair could give to employers that are eager to suppress wages and keep workers from organizing.

Surveillance intimidates employees. It can kill organizing efforts. If corporations get the green light to spy on workers, they’ll have an easier time ferreting out organizing campaigns and bullying employees into dropping them.

Unions fight for higher pay and better working conditions. They give workers a voice in the workplace. So corporations desperately want to keep them out. Some even spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on union-busting law firms and human resources consultants to help them.

Federal law prohibits employers from interfering in workers’ organizing rights. Right now, that means it’s illegal for corporations to surveil union activists or even give the impression that they’re snooping.

But some companies spy anyway and invent all sorts of excuses when they get caught doing it.

Google claims that its meeting alert tool is to control email and calendar spam, not labor organizing. But workers accustomed to the company’s anti-union paranoia don’t buy that for a minute.

The employees discovered the calendar tool by accident, and there’s no way for them to remove it from their computers. Google watches its employees all of the time.

The growth of technology and social media has given employers new ways to spy. Walmart, for example, has been accused of monitoring employee discussions on Reddit.

And the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers has accused Boeing of using cameras and wireless monitoring devices to track workers who voted to join the union. The company denied keeping tabs on union supporters. But as the union pointed out, there was no other reason for Boeing to spy on these employees but not others who were doing similar work.

If the NLRB were doing its job, it would be giving workers new protections against high-tech surveillance. Instead, as Ring and Kaplan indicated in a case involving the National Captioning Institute, they want to consider taking what little protection workers already have.

The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians filed an NLRB complaint because the National Captioning Institute fired union supporters and spied on organizing efforts through an employee Facebook site.

An NLRB panel—consisting of Ring, Kaplan and Democrat Lauren McFerran—ruled Oct. 29 that the institute interfered with workers’ organizing rights. The panel ruled the surveillance illegal and ordered the employees reinstated.

But in a footnote to the ruling, Ring and Kaplan said they’d like to revisit the prohibition on spying in a future case—especially spying conducted so clandestinely that workers don’t find out about it during an organizing campaign.

How, they asked, can spying impede workers’ organizing rights if “not a single employee” is aware of it?

That’s like suggesting that a person spied on in a department store dressing room isn’t violated as long as he or she never finds out about the Peeping Tom.

Besides, in 1941, a federal court took up this question and came down firmly against spying. In that case, a vegetable growers association argued that its surveillance of vegetable packers was permissible because there was no evidence that the workers knew about it. And what they didn’t know, the association insisted, couldn’t hurt them.

The NLRB disagreed. And the court backed the NLRB on appeal, writing that “casual examination of the dictionary discloses that a person may be interfered with, restrained or coerced without knowing it.”

The problem is, neither Ring nor Kaplan has shown respect for past decisions benefiting workers.

In June, overturning a 38-year precedent, Ring, Kaplan and Republican board member William J. Emanuel ruled that employers could bar union staff organizers from cafeterias and other “public spaces” in their workplaces. The ruling will make it more difficult for unions to connect with employees who want to organize.

In case after case, the Republican board members have rolled back worker rights.

In January, they delivered a devastating blow to gig workers by ruling that SuperShuttle drivers are independent contractors, not employees entitled to form a union.

And in July, they ruled that a company may withdraw recognition of a union before bargaining for a new contract if it believes that the union has lost the support of at least 50 percent of its members since the last agreement was signed. The employer doesn’t have to prove the union lost support, just gather evidence that it has. If the employer withdraws recognition of the union and the union subsequently wins a new election to represent workers, the employer faces no penalty.

Allowing companies to snoop on organizing campaigns would be the Republican board’s biggest giveaway to employers yet.

If that happens, all workplace laptops and company-issued cell phones could be programmed to inform on the workers who use them. And oftentimes the workers wouldn’t even know they’re being watched.

The NLRB’s job is to protect workers, not let employers think that it’s OK to engage in underhanded behavior as long as they don’t get caught. Ring, Kaplan and the rest of the board have a responsibility to set higher standards, not help employers climb down into the gutter.

This blog was originally published by AFL-CIO on November 20, 2019. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Tom Conway is international president of the United Steelworkers (USW).

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Walmart patents technology to eavesdrop on workers

Posted on July 16, 2018July 19, 2018 by ThinkProgress Staff

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Walmart has just patented surveillance technology which would allow it to eavesdrop on worker’s conversations and help monitor them to ensure they meet the company’s “performance metrics.”

The “Listening to the Frontend” system would collect audio data from the stores’ cashier areas, allowing it to pick up everything from beeps to conversations with customers to, potentially, conversations between workers. It would then analyse the sounds to ensure the employee is working efficiently — and help Walmart achieve “cost savings” and “guest satisfaction.”

“We’re always thinking about new concepts and ways that will help us further enhance how we serve customers,” a Walmart spokesperson told Buzzfeed News, who first reported the story. “We don’t have any further details to share on these patents at this time.”

It’s unclear when, or even if, Walmart will ever actually introduce this technology. But it is another example of how corporate giants are using technology in an attempt to track and control their workers — despite evidence showing that excess surveillance makes workers feel nervous and actually ends up slowing them down.

Amazon — whose profits topped $3 billion in 2017 — recently patented wristbandswhich can precisely track where its warehouse workers are, and point them in the right direction via vibration. In 2013, the Financial Times also documented how Amazon workers’ personal sat-navs set target times for them to shelve packages, and reports them to management if they’re behind schedule.

The surveillance isn’t just relegated to Amazon’s warehouses either. A 2015 New York Times story documented a similar Big Brother-esque atmosphere at Amazon’s corporate headquarters in Seattle. In a rare internal email, CEO Jeff Bezos pushed back on the article, saying it “doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day.”

Uber’s instant rating system is similarly stressful on workers, punishing drivers who fall bellow a 4.6.

Unsurprisingly, being constantly tracked and asked to meet robot-like targets is having a devastating effect on workers. The British GMB trade union previously warned that the kinds of “regimes” Amazon employers worked under were causing them to have musculoskeletal problems as well as stress and anxiety.

“It’s hard, physical work, but the constant stress of being monitored and never being able to drop below a certain level of performance is harsh,” Elly Baker, GMB’s lead officer for Amazon, said. “You can’t be a normal person. You have to be an above-average Amazon robot all the time.”

This article was originally published at ThinkProgress on July 12, 2018. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Luke Barnes is a reporter at ThinkProgress. He previously worked at MailOnline in the U.K., where he was sent to cover Belfast, Northern Ireland and Glasgow, Scotland. He graduated in 2015 from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science. He has also interned at Talking Points Memo, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Narratively.

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“Ban the Box” Continues to Take Off

Posted on June 11, 2015June 10, 2015 by Erik Idoni

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Yesterday, June 10, 2015, the National Employment Law Project and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights called on President Obama to “Ban the Box” and give everyone a fair chance to get a job by pushing background checks to later in the hiring process and banning the check-box on job applications asking if a person has a criminal record. That was the latest step in the “Ban the Box” campaign that on June 1 saw Ohio become the 17^th state to “Ban the Box”, and expects to see Oregon join them soon.

An estimated 68 million Americans have a criminal record, about one in four and more than the total population of France. On top of that, only around half of the FBI’s records are up-to-date, meaning an arrest without a conviction can still negatively impact employment chances due to an incorrect record. Not only do 92% of employers run background checks, but more than 800 occupations ban felons via the law or licensing rules. Furthermore, only 40% of employers interviewed said they would “definitely” or “probably” hire someone with a criminal record. Furthermore, the inability of ex-felons and formerly imprisoned Americans to get a job is costing the economy an estimated $57 to $65 billion per year in lost output.

The “Ban the Box” campaign’s purpose is to give people with criminal records a fair chance at getting a job. By eliminating background checks until later in the process, every person would have the chance to demonstrate their qualification without the shadow of a criminal record hanging over them. This can be a serious help to people with criminal records as 76% of hiring discrimination takes place when reviewing a job application.

The campaign took its first major step back in 1998 when Hawaii became the first state to pass a “Ban the Box” law. However, the term “Ban the Box” wasn’t coined until All of Us or None started using it in the early 2000s. Since then, “Ban the Box” has taken off, with four states passing “Ban the Box” laws already in 2015. While most states’ “Ban the Box” laws only apply to public employers, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, along with cities like Baltimore, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., have extended the laws to private employers.

These policies have been effective as well. After Minneapolis “Banned the Box” over half of applicants with convictions were hired, 10% of the people hired by the City of Atlanta between March and October of 2013 had records, and the number of people in Durham County, North Carolina with criminal records that were recommended for hire nearly tripled in the two years since they “Banned the Box”. Employers don’t regret these decisions either as a study by Evolv found that employees with criminal records end up being 1% to 1.5% more productive than those without criminal records.

There are many ways for people who want to help “Ban the Box” to get involved. The National Employment Law Project has plenty of information on the campaign as well as campaign strategies, model policies, and much more. People can also visit the “Ban the Box” campaign website to take the pledge, get information on the campaign, and find tools for a successful campaign. Similarly, All of Us or None has their own toolkit for people to use on their campaign as they try to make Ohio the 17^th state out of 50 to “Ban the Box”.

In the interest of both strengthening the economy and giving more qualified individuals a fair chance at getting jobs, we here at Workplace Fairness hope to see “Ban the Box” continue to thrive.

About the Author: The author’s name is Erik Idoni. Erik Idoni is a student at the George Mason University School of Law and an intern at Workplace Fairness.

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Employee Rights Short Takes: Supreme Court Hears Equal Protection Case, Firing For Facebook Posts May Be Illegal & More

Posted on November 23, 2010November 24, 2010 by Ellen Simon

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Texas Doctor To Collect Over 10 Million On Defamation/Breach of Contract Case

The Supreme Court of Texas cleared the way for Dr. Neal Fisher, a Dallas physician, to collect his 9.8 million dollar verdict against Pinnacle Anesthesia Consultants – an anesthesia group of which he was a shareholder and founding member.

Fisher sued Pinnacle for defamation and breach of contract when Pinnacle falsely accused him of alcohol and drug abuse after he raised concerns about an increasing volume of patient complaints and questionable billing practices. In 2007, a Dallas jury unanimously rendered a verdict in his favor. Last year the court of appeals upheld the verdict.

This month, the Supreme Court of Texas issued an order declining to hear the case which means that the verdict stands. With pre and post judgment interest, it is reported that Pinnacle will have to pay Dr. Fisher somewhere in the vicinity of $10.8 million dollars. Fisher has been recognized as one of the top five anesthesiologists in the state of Texas. For more about the case, read here.

EEOC Issues GINA Regulations

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued final regulations this month for purposes of implementation of the Genetic Information Non Discrimination Act of 2008 (GINA). Under GINA, it is illegal to discriminate against employees or applicants for employment because of genetic information. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:

GINA was enacted, in large part, in recognition of developments in the field of genetics, the decoding of the human genome, and advances in the field of genomic medicine. Genetic tests now exist that can inform individuals whether they may be at risk for developing a specific disease or disorder. But just as the number of genetic tests increase, so do the concerns of the general public about whether they may be at risk of losing access to health coverage or employment if insurers or employers have their genetic information.

Congress enacted GINA to address these concerns….

The final GINA rules published by the EEOC on November 9, 2010 prohibits the use of genetic information or family medical history in any aspect of employment, restricts employers from requesting, requiring, or purchasing genetic information, and strictly limits employers from disclosing genetic information. Family medical history is covered under the Act since it is often used to determine whether someone has an increased risk of getting a disease, disorder, or condition in the future. The Act also prohibits harassment or retaliation because of an individual’s genetic information. For more about the new rules and how to lawfully comply with them read here.

Firing for Facebook Posts About Work May Be Illegal

A Connecticut woman who was fired after posting disparaging remarks about her boss on Facebook has prompted the National Labor Board to prosecute a complaint against her employer – and this is big news. As noted by Steven Greenhouse in the NY Times:

This is the first case in which the labor board has stepped in to argue that workers’ criticism of their bosses or companies on a social networking site are generally protected activity and that employers would be violating the law by punishing workers for such statements.

Dawnmarie Souza, an emergency medical technician was fired late last year after she criticized her boss on her personal Facebook page. The Harford, Connecticut office of the NLRB announced on October 27^ththat it plans to prosecute a complaint against her employer, American Medical Response of Connecticut as a result of its investigation.

The NLRB determined that the Facebook postings constituted “protected concerted activity” and that the employer’s internet policy was overly restrictive to the extent that it precluded employees from making disparaging remarks when discussing the company or its supervisors.

It is not unusual for companies to have comparable policies in place as they attempt to deal with lawful restriction of social networking by their workforce and that’s why this news made a huge impact in the employment law world this month.

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) restricts employers’ attempts to interfere with employees’ efforts to work together to improve the terms or conditions of their workplace. The NLRB has long held that Section 7 was violated if an employer’s conduct would “reasonably tend to chill employees” in exercising their NLRB rights and that’s what prompted the complaint.

You can bet that both employers and employees will be keeping a careful watch for the decision which is expected some time after the hearing before an administrative law judge currently scheduled for January 15, 2011. For more about it, read here.

Supreme Court Hears Case Claiming Unconstitutional Gender Bias In Citizenship Law

The Supreme Court heard arguments in Flores-Villar v. U.S. this month, a case which challenges the constitutionality of a law that makes it easier for a child of unwanted parents to obtain citizenship if the mother is a U.S. citizen rather than the father.

Ruben Flores-Villar was born in Mexico but grew up in California. He was convicted of importing marijuana, was deported, and illegally reentered the country. In 2006, immigration authorities brought criminal charges against him. At that time, Flores-Villar sought citizenship, claiming his father was a U.S. citizen. The request was denied by immigration authorities because of a law requiring that a citizen father live in the United States for at least five years before a child is born in order for the child to obtain citizenship. Mothers need only to have lived in the county for one year for the child to obtain citizenship.

Flores-Villar claimed a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment claiming that the Act discriminated on the basis of gender. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found against him and held that the law’s disparate treatment of fathers was not unconstitutional. The last time the Court considered the issue of gender differences in citizenship qualification was the case of Nguyen v. INS in which the Court upheld a law creating a gender differential for determining parentage for purposes of citizenship. Flores-Villar’s attorney argued that Nguyen was distinguishable because it was based on biological differences whereas this case was based on antiquated notions of gender roles.

There is no doubt that this will be an interesting and important decision from the Supreme Court. For more about the case, including the Supreme Court filings, read here.

This article was originally posted on Employee Rights Post.

About the Author: Ellen Simon is recognized as one of the leading employment and civil rights lawyers in the United States. She offers legal advice to individuals on employment rights, age/gender/race and disability discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment. With a unique grasp of the issues, Ellen’s a sought-after legal analyst who discusses high-profile civil cases, employment discrimination and woman’s issues. Her blog, Employee Rights Post has dedicated readers who turn to Ellen for her advice and opinion. For more information go to www.ellensimon.net.

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What Are the Biggest Taboos at Work?

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Bob Rosner

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Last week, I was watching George Carlin on HBO. I started thinking about his famous list of the seven things you can’t say on television. So this week I’m going to present the Workplace911 variation on Carlin’s list — a list of five taboo words for today’s workplace.

The first taboo in today’s workplace is the word “felony.” Corporations don’t like prison records. However, ex-offenders don’t need to worry too much, because this will change for two reasons. First, the dramatic increase of executives who visit the big house. If these guys keep getting arrested, every head honcho is going to have a rap sheet, and they have to work somewhere.

OK, Martha Stewart hasn’t gone out and hired a bunch of her former prison bunk mates to work at her company. But she has been speaking out about ex-offenders as potential contributors to society. And over time this will have an impact. That leads to the second reason why some of the sting may come out of the word felony at work. Though there are 44 million Gen-Xers in the workforce, they are greatly outnumbered by the 76 million baby boomers who will start planning for retirement in the next couple of decades. We’ll have to run our economy while millions of workers worry more about weekends and Winnebagos than their work. Something’s got to give, and the modern workforce is going to have to get creative to find new workers. I predict that with more than two million incarcerated in the U.S. and a dwindling supply of workers, ex-offenders will become more common around the office.

The second taboo at work is not a word but an acronym: “TMI” — too much information. This can apply to all manner of information, but of particular note is the often uncomfortable revealing of personal medical situations. People don’t want to hear about your medical challenges, your itchy rash, your surgery or your prostate, etc. Yes, the practice of avoiding running your mouth and disclosing TMI rules at work today. Find a therapist, a mate or a relative who really cares about the medical details of your life. But don’t share it with your coworkers, because hearing about those things makes them uneasy and can make work an uncomfortable place to be.

The third taboo at work revolves around the word “relationships.” Don’t go there. People don’t want to hear about your marital or relationship problems. Through the years I can’t believe how many people have shared intimate information about their relationships with me. Call me a prude, but I think pillow talk should be reserved for conversations that actually take place over pillows.

The fourth taboo is the word “why.” As in “Why did you…” “Why do we…” Most corporations don’t take kindly to being asked this simple question. Sure, there are bosses who can handle it. I just think that they are rarer than most people think. Sometimes it’s better to just bite your tongue and forge ahead with an assignment, even if you’re not totally sure about the outcome. People who constantly question the worth of a project or a boss’s decision often get tagged as malcontents. So be careful when you drag out the “W” word.

And finally, the fifth taboo — “bravado.”

Most of us learn at a very early age that we are never to show weakness or vulnerability at work. Bravado is the way; do what you can and fake what you can’t. I personally believe that the lack of vulnerability weakens organizations because it prevents real connection and real interactions between people.

If I had a magic wand I’d hope that we could all do a much better job of being more vulnerable at work. Sure it’s tough, but isn’t it time that we all brought a bit more humanity to our jobs? And what better way is there to do this than being genuine and vulnerable with the people we work with? So stash that bravado and learn to show a softer side — it will humanize you in the eyes of your coworkers and probably encourage them to do the same.

My five taboo words at work — felony, TMI, relationships, why and bravado. I’d love to hear yours.

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

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Workplace Fairness

Tag: privacy

Corona-fied: Employers Spying on Remote Workers in Their Homes

Wild West: Firms interpret California’s privacy law as they see fit

Corporate Spies Keep An Eye On Organized Labor

Walmart patents technology to eavesdrop on workers

“Ban the Box” Continues to Take Off

Employee Rights Short Takes: Supreme Court Hears Equal Protection Case, Firing For Facebook Posts May Be Illegal & More

Texas Doctor To Collect Over 10 Million On Defamation/Breach of Contract Case

EEOC Issues GINA Regulations

Firing for Facebook Posts About Work May Be Illegal

Supreme Court Hears Case Claiming Unconstitutional Gender Bias In Citizenship Law

What Are the Biggest Taboos at Work?

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