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Social Medi A Popular Platform For Communicating

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Social media has become a popular platform for communicating. Everyone from the government, to businesses, unions and individuals are finding social media to be an effective tool not just for communicating, but also for informing, promoting and organizing. In the public sector, social media has become an important open government tool for communicative exchange with the public it serves (Mergel, 2010). On social media platforms individuals are able express their thoughts, ideas, feeling and concerns about anything and everything. This however has become a very slippery slope in terms of labor relations. Frequently, employers learn of posted off-duty comments and photographs that are negative towards the business or they do not portray the proper image for their business. These posts on the employees pages tend to blur the line between work and off-duty activities in many occupational settings. Due to this unfiltered and unprofessional behavior we have had to include social media use into labor laws. Many arbitrators are beginning to hear employee misconduct cases involving the content of post on social media pages. In reviewing cases the NLRB has said that whether a conversation takes place on Facebook or at the water cooler, it is employees talking jointly about work conditions and they have the right to do that. This falls under their right to have “concerted activities”. This means that more than one individual must be involved and there must be some intent or

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