Fired for Blogging?

By Lily Garcia

I'm very frustrated in my current job -- I have a bad boss with poor ethics -- and my employer is doing nothing to address my concerns. I maintain a blog and am very tempted to let my readers know what is happening and that my employer is doing nothing about the situation.

I'm a firm believer in free speech, but want to know if my employer can take action against me if I speak openly (not positively) about my employer in my blog. Help!

Simply put, you could be fired. I know that seems unfair, but employees are fired all of the time for disparaging their employers. I am not suggesting that you do nothing more, only that you pursue these issues in such a way that you are protected.

First, make sure that you truly have exhausted your legitimate internal complaint channels. Have you notified human resources? What about your chief operations officer? The owner? Surely there is someone in your organization who will recognize the legitimacy of your concerns.

Regardless of the nature of your boss's unethical conduct, there is probably a government agency tasked with investigating such matters and a law to protect you against retaliation. Provided that your employer is a publicly traded company or the contractor or subcontractor of such a company, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would protect you from retaliation for reporting information that you believe to be a violation of a Securities and Exchange Commission rule or other federal laws concerning fraud against shareholders.

You would also be protected against retaliation if you reported a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or if you notified the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of a shortcoming in workplace safety. These are only some examples of your federal avenues of complaint. Your state or local governments will afford you other protections as well.

If you blog while you are at work or using your company's technology, you could easily lose your job for misusing company property or violating the company's IT policy. It is a rare employer that does not require employees to sign a policy acknowledging that company equipment and IT are for legitimate work use only and that any other use would be considered a violation of workplace rules.

In the event that you are blogging on your own computer while you are not on the job, I should mention that many states and the District of Columbia have passed laws protecting employees from adverse employment action based on legal off-duty conduct. These statutes are mainly addressed to the use of tobacco, alcohol and other legal products. Some of the more expansive statutes also include protections for employees engaging in lawful recreational activities and romantic relationships...More?

source: washingtonpost.com