Company changing their policy so spouses can't work together.

[guestpost]

So a situation arose last week on Friday with the company that I am currently contracted out to. I Reside in Georgia, and I work as a Independent Contractor for this I.T. Company.
This might be a little strange to follow to please bare with me as I try to explain it as the best as I can. Last year (2012) I moved down to Georgia were my best friend was living because his company was hiring. I got hired as a independent contractor for X Company. (We will just call the company X for now.) My boyfriend is a Project Manager with X Company. He basically handles everything that is supposed to happen on site (computer installs, fixing computer, ect..ect..) Well as of last week I was informed that X Company was going to start a new policy for the company. This policy is That if you spouse is a PM (Project Manager) then you can not work on the same project as they are currently working on. My boyfriend was told this by his boss. Apparently the reason they are now doing this is because they are having another PM come down here who is engaged to a Tech who is his fiancé. Ironically this Tech is a Female, as I am as well. I asked my boyfriend why are they now just putting this policy in place? He said the reasoning for this was because they want to make sure that no one thinks their is favoritism going on within the company. Now this part I can understand completely, until I asked him "Oh so does this apply towards family members as well?" My boyfriend told me that his boss said "No just towards spouses. Because family is family. And with a spouse you aren't blood related." I thought to myself wow that is really mean of them to say something like that. So granted I was a little upset that I feel like this policy is really only towards females and not males. But this company main motto is "being a family owned business." So I contacted my boyfriends boss via e-mail and I asked him how come he (we will call boss 5) never taken the effort to call me and tell me what was going on? Why did he have to put my boyfriend in the middle of this. His reply back to my email was simply "Because you are a contractor and I don't have to talk to you. Contact HR." So obviously I was a little upset. Monday morning rolls by....Still no one from Corporate has contacted me. I made a post this morning on facebook that said the following "So after being a contractor for X Company for about 1 1/2 years I will be leaving the company by the summertime. IT was brought to my attention that I would not be able to work on site or on the same project with my spouse who is a Project Manager. Because the company is afraid that it might show favoritism. But here is were it gets interesting. I will be working in the warehouse were all the training that I have received will be put to terrible use, and I can only work on someone elses project. But this rule ONLY applies to spouses and not family members. Doesn't that see sexist and biased at the same time? This is supposed to be a "family company" seems like that is not so true anymore."
Now today is Tuesday.....Someone from recruiting contacted me, and asked me about my post that I made on facebook. I told him yes I made that post because I was upset. They told me that I needed to remove that post from my facebook account because it is slander, and if I don't do so they will sue me. This recruiter also told me that the company contacted their lawyers and the message that I left onmy facebook account is slander and if I want to continue to work for the company that I have to remove it. So I did so....

Now my question is, Is that really slander? I don't see how it is consider slander. I didn't mention any ones names what so ever. I even took the time to look up the definition of "slander" and it said someone who says (oral or spoken) something bad about a person or persons.
Can someone please shed some light on this for me? lol

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Facebook, Twitter and other social media is probably the bane of all employees. I'll explain the law and the reality regarding social media, employment law and defamation.

1. Written words that constitute defamation are called libel and not slander. I doubt the company's attorneys made the mistake of using "slander" instead of "libel" to describe defamatory content that appears in writing. You don't need to specifically use names for a statement to constitute slander if the party you are referring to is clear. For example, you could be a sportscaster for ESPN and not use the name of your employer but thousands of people will still know the party to whom you're referring.

That said, in order to qualify for defamation (libel or slander), the statement must be false, communicated to another person and be damaging to the party of reference (your employer.) If one of these elements is not present the communication does not qualify as defamation. If your statement is inaccurate then you could be liable for the damages due to your defamatory or libelous statement. If what you're saying is true, your statement does not legally qualify for a cause of action brought for defamation.

2. It's possible you may have a non-disclosure agreement. If you publicly shared information that you were contractually obligated to keep private, you might be liable for the damages caused by your conduct.

3. If you're an at-will employee or contractor (someone who does not have an employment contract), your company can terminate your employment. Many people are under the assumption that if they are doing a good job then they have a right to continue their employment and cannot be fired. This is wrong.

In one of the best social media examples I have seen publicized in the UK (and the law is the same in the US), a young woman was lamenting how bored she was at work on Facebook. She forgot that some of her co-workers were able to see her social media posts on Facebook and assumed that it was her right to vent. After all, what goes on in the activity stream in Facebook isn't causing a ruckus at work, right? No, that's not right. Even had she vented during off hours (I think she logged in during work hours), it wouldn't have made a difference. Her termination caused a worldwide stir since it involved a young woman's seemingly innocuous statement on Facebook. But her boss said that since it appeared that she wasn't happy on the job and that the statement, seen by others, would cause tension in the workplace, he felt that it was in the best interests of the company to replace her. Her employer probably didn't need to provide any reason for the young woman's termination but felt it was necessary to do so as a result of the publicity generated by Facebook.

The moral of the story is there is almost never any benefit of sharing your dissatisfaction with your job or place of employment on Facebook, Twitter or any other form of social media. And if you do, there is probably no legal remedy available to you to get your job back.

 

[cbg]

And just so you know (1) it is legal to treat contractors differently than employees and (2) it is legal to treat spouses differently than other family members