Be sure to think before writing negative Facebook posts...

After a long and awful day at work it may feel good to let out some steam by ranting on Facebook... Well you may want to think again! Companies are looking to make stricter policies about what their employees post on social network sites.  Negative posts lead to sticky situation for the National Labor Relations Board to deal with.  According to their website, the National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve their wages and working conditions. (https://www.nlrb.gov/who-we-are) Social network posts fall into the legislation of the NLRB, working to make sure employees are protected from getting fired for unlawful reasons.

The Foxnews article (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/26/companies-look-to-improve-facebook-policies-amid-surge-complaints/) talks about how employers are annoyed that they can't fire employees for talking about work online. According to general counsel, Lafe Solomon, "federal law permits employees to talk with co-workers about their jobs and working conditions without reprisal -- whether that conversation takes place around the water cooler or on Facebook or twitter."

This doesn't mean that employees can say anything they want to on social media... One Wal-Mart employee was fired after a Facebook post because it was " 'an individual gripe' rather than an effort to discuss work conditions with co-workers."

Since there appears to be a fine line for the reasons of termination, a lot of companies want their social media policies reviewed or they want to establish one for the first time.