Blogging has been encouraged as a means of letting out clogged ideas in the mind of people but to date, most of the scattered ideas have become more of a nuisance rather than a helpful tool in the employee development of most companies. Such has been notable in the turnover rates of employees who find them looking for other jobs mainly because their employers are not to forgiving when they are able to read what they are sharing or hiding to express.

Some companies have gone to the extent of peeping into the personal journals and sometimes, these may bring back unlikely reactions. These reactions may be deemed as just cause for their termination, something that is clearly to watch out for on the part of the employees as a whole.

“A lot of people think they’re protected by the First Amendment in cases where they’re not,” said David Williams, a partner at law firm Morris James LLP in Wilmington, Del., and a past chairman of the employment and labor law section of the Delaware State Bar Association.

Union collective bargaining agreements and individual employment contracts generally say a worker can be fired only for what is known as “just cause.”

Yet, 92 percent of private-sector workers aren’t covered by collective bargaining, and employment contracts usually are limited to high-level executives.

Even though in Illinois, a company has the right to terminate an employee at will, one local attorney believes that without a policy in place, a worker should not be fired for speaking out on an outside-of-the-workplace issue.

“If there is no agreement, then in my opinion, you can say and do whatever you want,” said Al Williams, a Dixon attorney who specializes in workman’s compensation cases.

Broad statements on workplace free speech can be hard to make though, according to Williams, because company policies and situations can be so varied.

“It is very case-by-case and deal-by-deal, but an employer has to give a reason for firing you, they can’t just do it,” Williams said. – Let the bloggers beware: Companies’ rules may restrict what employees can and can’t say

[tags]blogger, problogger, employee rights, collective bargaining, CBA[/tags]