Ronald Shechtman, Pryor Cashman’s Managing Partner and Chair of its Labor and Employment Group, recently spoke to PC World and IT World for their November 26, 2010 article, “How to Get Fired on Facebook – You think your First Amendment rights extend to what you say on Facebook or Twitter? Think again.”

The article was a follow up to one about a woman who got fired for saying her boss was a jerk (and worse) on Facebook. The National Labor Relations Board had filed a suit arguing that the employee’s comment were protected by the National Labor Relations Act, as her termination could be interpreted as suppressing union organizing activities. 

When asked about freedom of speech, Shechtman said: “We check our First Amendment rights at the door when we enter private employment. If a lawyer in my office wants to put up a political poster on his door saying vote for Sarah Palin or Barak Obama, there’s nothing that stops his employer from saying ‘No you don't’.” The exception is if you work for a Federal or state agency, they can’t fire you merely for something you say, because they’re legally bound to follow the Constitution. 

Another exception is if you say something like “my company makes products that contain toxic chemicals” and you get fired, you may be protected under whistleblower statutes -- but only if you happen to work in an industry or live in a state that has them. Even then, says Shechtman, the allegation has to be true,  or at least you have to sincerely believe it’s true. You can’t say it just to ruin your employer’s reputation because you’re ticked off. 

Whether you say these things in your cubicle, at the water cooler, in a bar after work, or on Facebook doesn’t make a difference, legally speaking, says Shechtman. “Saying it on Facebook makes it sexier and causes people to pay more attention. But it still comes down to the same analysis: What is the nature and purpose of the speech? Is it an activity the National Labor Relations Act exists to protect?”

Shechtman also noted that you may be exposed to defamation suits from the people you’re trashing online  - and you’re not protected by merely saying “in my opinion, my boss is a jerk,” he says. Of course, proving defamation is very difficult. But defending yourself against a suit is also difficult, and expensive. 

“The reality is we’re in a world where we have more and different kinds of communications with a public facet to them,” he says. “If you’re talking in a bar, the reality is that unless someone is standing next to you or sitting across from you, no one else is going to hear it or be interested. But once you put it online, it lives in an almost immutable form, until someone deletes it. It’s like you posted it on a sign.”

To read the entire article, please click here.