Susan Varney like
many people of today has a Facebook. As she was scrolling through the statuses
of friends, she commented on an online article. In her comment, she referred to
her co-workers as "bobble heads", which means they just nod their heads
to whatever management has to say. She also complained about the amount of
hours she was allowed to work, and how she was treated disrespectfully in the
workplace. A week later, Susan Verney was fired from her job at Lawrence Public
Library due to her online posting.
How do these two
incidents relate? At the time of her posting the Fairfield Town Council was
drafting a Social Media Policy, which stated employees are subject to
“discipline up to and including termination” if they break the policy. The
policy itself said employees could not curse, undermine the town’s image, speak
irresponsibly, or use sexually explicit language. In Susan’s case, she was
breaking a yet to be known rule of not using words that could “impair working
relationships” and “impair discipline and harmony among coworkers.”
After the scrutiny of
the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, which told the town the policy was
in violation of the First Amendment, Fairfield suspended its social media
policy. A clause in the policy requires town employees to throw their
co-workers under the bus if they see them violating the policy. “The First
Amendment does not permit this type of compelled speech,” said Amarasingham
(ACLU’s public policy counsel) All in all, the Maine Municipal Association
recommends that its members adopt a social media policy to limit risk, but
Fairfield needs to take a better looks at their policy.
First, I think Susan
Varney was wrongfully fired. The social media policy had yet to be released, so
how was she supposed to know she was breaking any rules? I believe all Susan
needed was a warning, and a small lesson on how to present herself and her
employer. Second, the social media policy seems too broad to be easily
understood. Employees should easily know if a posting violates the policy or
not, and guessing should not be involved. The point made by Amarasingham, seems
to be true in my opinion. Also, it may create a more hostile work environment
if employees need to “tattle” on their colleagues.
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