Labor & EmploymentNew York Law Journal
2012-03-26 00:00:00.0
Elise Bloom and Jacqueline Dorn of Proskauer Rose discuss the common misconception that the First Amendment protects on-the-job political expression for private-sector employees, the exceptions that will protect speech in the workplace and recent cases demonstrating the risks to employers of discrimination claims based on political discussions.
Michael Masri, a partner at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone, and Pedram Tabibi, an associate with the firm, write: The line between online work and personal life - and the content each generates - is increasingly blurring. Employees spend time on social media platforms at work while also promoting themselves and their companies via social media. As a result, questions inevitably arise as to who exactly is building a brand, what the brand is, and who owns any customers.
Holland & Knight's Michael Starr and Katherine H. Marques write: It is sometimes said that, under New York's employee-choice doctrine, employers can never enforce anticompetition forfeitures and restrictive covenants if they terminate their employees involuntarily and without cause. That is a misstatement of the law.
Joel M. Cohn and Richard J. Rabin, partners at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, write: For a company seeking to control labor costs or manage its workforce to account for fluctuations in the business cycle, classifying workers as independent contractors can appear an attractive option. But a misclassification as such, even with the best intentions, can be costly - and with stepped up enforcement efforts by numerous federal and state agencies, the risks are growing.
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