Company Settles Case in Firing Tied to Facebook

An ambulance company that fired an employee after she criticized her supervisor on Facebook agreed on Monday to settle a case brought by the National Labor Relations Board.

The plan resolves an Oct. 27 complaint against American Medical Response of Connecticut that said the employee, Dawnmarie Souza, had been illegally fired and denied union representation.

Among the issues was whether a worker has the right to criticize a supervisor on a site like Facebook if co-workers add comments. The case was the first by the National Labor Relations Board to assert that employers break the law by disciplining workers who post criticisms on social-networking Web sites.

“There’s a strong argument that social networks are like a public forum, an invitation to conversation,” said Marshall B. Babson, a lawyer who served on the labor board during the Reagan administration.

Under the settlement, American Medical will revise its “overly broad rules” to ensure that they do not improperly restrict employees from discussing wages, hours and working conditions with co-workers and others while not at work, and that they would not discipline or discharge employees for engaging in such discussions, the labor board said in a statement.

The company promised that employee requests for union representation when meeting with managers would not be denied, and that employees would not be threatened with discipline for requesting union representation, according to the agency.

The original complaint by the labor board said that in November 2009, Ms. Souza was denied the right to seek union help before she responded to a supervisor’s questions about a customer complaint. She had posted disparaging remarks about a supervisor on her Facebook page from a home computer, according to the case. American Medical Response said in November that the statements she had made did not qualify as protected activity.