The National Labor Relations Board has come with the decision that yes you can criticize your superiors whether it be your supervisor, manager or boss. It is also ok to do it thru the 21st century medium of the Internet. This is a wonderful decision because now we blue collar workers can say what is on our mind without the fear of retribution.
This is a great tool in the hands of the blue collar workers because from now onward they can vent without the fear of reprisal. The decision was based on the American Medical Response of Connecticut, Inc., when it terminated an employee for her postings on Facebook. We were puzzled with this New England company and wonder why it acted in a manner that could have been associated with southern states where the superiors are petty and abusive and could care less about the well being of the blue collar workers.
This is a major win for the blue collar workers because usually they had no protection when they wanted to criticize their superiors and they had to be in deep cover out of fear of reprisal from their petty abusive superiors. Now they do not need to fear the management because a new era has come where you can use the internet to criticize those superiors. Now the floodgates are open and let the thrash talking be directed towards the superiors. Blue collar workers now do not need to get permission from their company to post on the internet or worry about violating company internet policies.
Even though the case is scheduled for a hearing on January 25, 2011 we here in the why did you join the union consider this as an empowerment for the blue collar workers. We are upon the holiday season and what a beautiful decision that would be for us workers.
Social networking and the workplace is an arena that will eventually come to a head in our jobs. In my dept we have already had an incident where an employee's privacy rights were violated by a supervisor monitoring his facebook account. The supervisor said he did it in the interests of "safety." These are just among the new challenges that face us as a Union as we go into a more "plugged in" future.
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