On January 24, 2012, the acting general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released his second report on social media in less than six months. This 35-page report addresses 14 legal cases dealing with emerging social media challenges in the workplace.
Whether your employees are unionized or not, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) applies to your organization. This includes your company's social media policy, since even nonunion workers may have the right to use social media to comment on working conditions, according to the NLRB.
This webinar is designed to help you deal with social media issues in the workplace whether you have a formal social media policy or not. If your employee handbook includes rules on inappropriate conduct or use of company communication technology, you need to know how those rules apply in social media situations.
This information-packed agenda features two NLRB practitioners who represent clients on opposite sides of the bargaining table: Ronald Meisburg is a partner with Proskauer Rose, in Washington, D.C., and represents employers. He is a former NLRB General Counsel and Member of the Board. Heidi Parker is an attorney with Asher Gittler & D'Alba, in Chicago, where she represents employees and public and private sector labor unions in arbitrations and litigation.
The speakers will address:
As Philip Gordon, a shareholder in Littler Mendelson's Denver office and chair of the firm's Privacy and Data Protection Group, told Bloomberg BNA recently: "The biggest challenge right now is there are a lot of social media policies on the web that are publicly available and easy to download, but as a company you need to be very careful now when you're relying on something published before the [acting] general counsel's memo on Jan. 24, 2012 …"
Attendees will be able to ask questions of the presenters, but are also invited to submit questions in advance to moderator Rich Bronson (rbronson@bna.com).
Ronald Meisburg, Partner, Proskauer; Heidi Parker, Attorney, Asher Gittler & D’Alba
Ronald Meisburg is a Partner in the Labor & Employment Law Department and cohead of the Labor-Management Relations and Strategic Corporate Planning Groups, resident in the Washington, D.C. office.
Before joining Proskauer, Ronald served as General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board for four and one half years and as a Board Member for one year. He is one of only four people to have served as both a Board Member and as the General Counsel, and the only person to have received Presidential nominations for both offices.
Prior to serving at the NLRB, Ronald was a management labor lawyer from 1980 through 2003. In private practice, he has advised management clients with respect to issues arising under federal labor and employment law and collective bargaining agreements; served as labor counsel in complex business transactions; assisted clients in collective bargaining and in grievance and arbitration cases; and represented clients in matters pending before federal labor and employment agencies, and in federal trial and appellate court litigation.
Heidi Parker is an attorney with Asher Gittler & D'Alba, in Chicago, where she represents employees and public and private sector labor unions in arbitrations and labor litigation before state and federal trial and appellate courts; and before state and federal administrative agencies, including the Illinois Labor Relations Board and the National Labor Relations Board. She has written decisions on behalf of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board and worked as in house counsel for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council.
She received her B.S. from James Madison University and her J.D. from DePaul University College of Law. She has been a member of the Illinois bar since 2006 and is admitted to practice before the United States Northern District of Illinois as a member of the Trial Bar.