Killian Probst
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/09/facebook.firing/index.html?hpt=T2
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Labor board: Facebook vent against supervisor not grounds for firing
The article discusses an emergency medical technician in Connecticut who made disparaging remarks about her supervisor on her facebook page. She was fired shortly after, but the company, American Medical Response, cites her behavior to patients as the reason for her dismissal. She has brought suit against the company, trying to regain her position with the company. The National Labor Relations board has issued a complaint against the company as well. Social network and email monitoring is currently a hot issue. Many arguements have arisen about how far companies can go in monitoring. I feel that what is done outside of the workplace is not related to business unless it directly hurts a companies reputation or business. The issue in no way has concrete rules involved in policing it, so some social regulation needs to be implemented. If there are restrictions put on where people can social network from (not at work), and how companies can use social networking against people, then court cases like this would cease to exist. This particular court case is groundbreaking because it is the first of its kinda and without social regulations in place, many are sure to follow.
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Killian,
ReplyDeleteThough you mentioned that this is the first case of this kind, I have actually heard of many instances where individuals are fired due to Facebook, one of which is a family member. The definition of social regulation is an 'imposition of restrictions on private action that threatens public health, safety, welfare, or well-being.' In this case, well-being is threatened; however, like you mentioned, no particular regulation was in place. It is interesting how such a questionable act occurred the same time they decided to fire her for being disrespectful to coworkers. It will be interesting to discover how this plays out.
Elise Leppert
Killian,
ReplyDeleteI believe that Facebook and the entire social network community and business should be completely separate. The old adage is that "Business and pleasure must be completely separate" this applies here, personal lives/opinions should not reflect how they perform in the workplace. People should not be worried about their financial well being because of what they do or say in their free time.
HAYDEN WOLF