Google Pay Raises, Facebook Use Under Fire After Employee Terminations
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Two firings-one of an employee posting opinions about her boss on Facebook and another of a Google employee for leaking pay info-raise the question: What's going on here?
'Tis the season to not upset your employer.
"We've
heard from your feedback on Googlegeist and other surveys that salary is more
important to you than any other component of pay (i.e., bonus and equity). To
address that, we're moving a portion of your bonus into your base salary, so
now it's income you can count on, every time you get your paycheck. That's also
effective January 1st. You'll be receiving an email shortly with further
details about these changes to your compensation. And one last thing ... today
we're announcing that everyone will get a holiday cash bonus, too."
Employees
wanting to share the good news with the world should take heed: Companies like
Google are not keen on revealing confidential employee benefit information to
the press-good, bad or otherwise. The question is, what message does that send
to employees? How harmful was the information the individual shared with the
media? Enough to get fired over, evidently.
Peter
Kafka of All Things Digital attempted to get an explanation from Google
over the firing and the concern over the press finding out, but was only left to speculate that the company was
trying to keep the information from Wall Street investors, but even that bird
doesn't appear to fly very far.
"I've
gone ahead and asked Google for comment as well, but I'm not hopeful. (UPDATE:
I can see the future! No comment from Google.)," wrote Kafka. "In the
absence of one, I'll speculate that Google was freaked out that the 'leak'
would cause it problems with Wall Street and/or the SEC. But again, if that's
the case, that makes no sense-you can't hand out big fat checks to 23,300
people and keep it quiet indefinitely."
Speaking
of firings, how about the termination case in Connecticut that involves a
negative Facebook post by an employee about her manager?
In
early November, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint on behalf
of a terminated employee who worked as an emergency technician for American
Medical Response, an ambulance services company.
Dawnmarie
Souza contends she was fired after posting critical comments about her managing
supervisor on Facebook and after requesting and being denied the right for
representation from her union, Teamsters Local 443, according to the complaint.
Part of the case is the denial of the union assistance, but the labor board
also contends American Medical Response's Internet and blogging policies are "overly
broad."
The
company said Souza was a problem employee with customers and that Facebook had
nothing to do with the termination, but the issue of what can and cannot be
written in a Facebook post certainly makes this a potentially precedent-setting
case for all companies and their social media policies.
"An
NLRB investigation found that the employee's Facebook postings constituted
protected concerted activity, and that the company's blogging and internet
posting policy contained unlawful provisions, including one that prohibited
employees from making disparaging remarks when discussing the company or
supervisors and another that prohibited employees from depicting the company in
any way over the internet without company permission," wrote the Office of
General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board in a Nov. 2 statement. "Such provisions
constitute interference with employees in the exercise of their right to engage
in protected concerted activity.:
A
hearing is scheduled on this issue for late January 2011.
Employees
of all stripes will be watching with anticipation. The courts are not going to
want to open the floodgates for trash talking of supervisors, but they also
want to respect workers' rights to share their opinions with others.
Where
shall the law go with this? We wait to find out. In the meantime, you may want
to keep your online boss bashing as private as possible. 
