To help provide further guidance to practitioners and human resource professionals, National Labor Relations Board Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon has released a second report involving questions about employer social media policies, finding in five cases the employer policies to be “unlawfully broad.”

The report underscores two main points made in an earlier compilation of cases: employer policies should not be so sweeping that they prohibit the kinds of activity protected by federal labor law, such as the discussion of wages or working conditions among employees, and an employee’s comments on social media are generally not protected if they are mere gripes not made in relation to group activity among employees, according to NLRB.

Given the new and evolving nature of social media cases, the Acting General Counsel says he has asked all regional offices to send cases which the Regions believe to be meritorious to the agency’s Division of Advice in Washington D.C., in the interest of tracking them and devising a consistent approach. The report, which does not name the parties to the cases or their locations, illustrates that these cases are extremely fact-specific.

The report represents the Acting General Counsel’s interpretation of the National Labor Relations Act as it applies to forms of communication that did not exist when the Act was written. Three cases involving social media questions are currently pending before the Board and those decisions will give further guidance as the law around social media develops.