Law Commons^™

In 2007, the National Labor Relations Board decided that an employer could maintain an email communications policy that prohibits nonwork-related messages, even if those messages involved communications otherwise protected under the National Labor Relations Act. In December 2014, the National Labor Relations Board reversed this holding, but in doing so, limited its decision to just workplace email. This article argues that such a prescription is outdated and archaic in light of today’s modern workplace filled with communications devices and systems that blur the distinction between work and personal life. This article explains that such a prescription can cause employees to …

We live and work in an era with the moniker of the New Gilded Age to describe the growth in societal income inequality. The designation is not limited to evidence of the growing gap in wealth distribution, but also the sharp rise in employment without security, including contingent and part-time work. This article examines the state of workplace procedural protections against discipline as they relate to employee use of social media in the New Gilded Age. In our times, reactions to the rapid distribution of troublesome electronic communications through social networking tend to eclipse patience for enforceable workplace procedures. The …