What gives? According to LePage’s spokesperson, the labor mural and labor icon-named rooms “showed ‘one-sided decor’ not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.” I’ll let you parse that one. From the Lewiston, Maine Sun Journal:

Gov. Paul LePage has ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting Maine’s labor history from the lobby of the Department of Labor.

Worker advocates described the move as a “mean-spirited” provocation amid the administration’s high-tension standoff with unions.

Acting labor chief Laura Boyett emailed staff Tuesday about the mural’s pending removal, as well as another administration directive to rename several department conference rooms that carry the names of pro-labor icons such as Cesar Chavez.

According to LePage spokesman Dan Demeritt, the administration felt the mural and the conference room monikers showed “one-sided decor” not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.

“The message from state agencies needs to be balanced,” said Demeritt, adding that the mural had sparked complaints from “some business owners” who complained it was hostile to business.

So the mural probably shows people-powered revolutions putting CEOs’ heads on spikes, right? I can see how that’d seem unbalanced.

The 11-panel piece depicts several moments, including the 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston, “Rosie the Riveter” at Bath Iron Works, and the paper mill workers’ strike of 1986 in Jay.

“There was never any intention to be pro-labor or anti-labor,” she said. “It was a pure depiction of the facts.”

Oh. Damn facts! So what’s the Gov’s solution?

Demeritt said he didn’t know when the mural would be removed. [...] Demeritt said the rooms could be named “after mountains, counties or something.”

Or something. Sounds perfect for the Department of Labor…

Picture of the mural below:

UPDATE: Dirigo Blue has the full memo from Maine DOL.

DOUBLE UPDATE: This is crazy. Here’s the letter the prompted the Governor to remove the mural:

She said the Governor’s Office has received “several messages” from the public complaining about the mural. She released an anonymous fax dated Feb. 24 that apparently comes from someone who sat in the Labor Department lobby.

“In this mural I observed a figure which closely resembles the former commissioner of labor,” the person wrote. “In studying the mural I also observed that this mural is nothing but propaganda to further the agenda of the Union movement. I felt for a moment that I was in communist North Korea where they use these murals to brainwash the masses.”

The fax is signed “A Secret Admirer.”

That’s it?

Follow David on Twitter for these and more updates.

Capitol police either hasn’t gotten orders or has been told to do nothing #wiunion3 minutes ago

Dane Co sheriff is here, doesn’t see a public safety or health problem with ppl staying. #onedaylonger #wiunion17 minutes ago

Doesn’t look like they’re kicking anyone out yet #wiunion25 minutes ago

Announcement: “the Capitol is now closed” #wiunion34 minutes ago

There are hundreds of people still in the Capitol, and according to David, not nearly enough police to clear them out. The live feed from the top of the Rotunda just cut out.

Follow live updates on this post for more.

You should also check out David Dayen’s latest post from inside the Capitol with videos of protestors (also collected below).

Live video from inside Capitol Building:

The nearly union-free city of Charlotte, NC (Willamor Media/Flickr)

This morning the Democratic National Committee announced that its 2012 convention will be held in Charlotte, NC. Charlotte was selected over St. Louis, Minnesota, and Cleveland; it can be assumed that the city was chosen for its location in the new swing-state of North Carolina, which Obama won in 2008 and that the GOP must win if it has hopes of recapturing the White House.

North Carolina has another distinction: it’s the least union state in the country, with just 3.2% of its workers belonging to a union (coming behind even Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi). And the DNC’s host city of Charlotte has exactly 0 (zero) union hotels in which the 15,000+ visitors will stay for the convention. Finally, the host venue in Charlotte, the Time Warner Cable Arena, does not appear to have any union workers. (I called the arena; the operator laughed at the notion that employees would be union members, and a press contact hasn’t replied yet.)

Union leaders had previously asked the DNC to not choose Charlotte or Cleveland for their lack of union hotels. The DNC had said at the time that union representation was one of “a number of factors” the DNC considered in site selection.

“Among the DNC’s four finalist cities, only St. Louis and Minneapolis” have the capacity to “house a large portion of the delegates and other guests … in unionized hotels,” John Wilhelm, president of the international UNITE HERE union of hotel and textile workers, wrote in a letter to DNC Chairman Tim Kaine.

“Therefore, one of those two cities should be the DNC’s choice for 2012. Unfortunately, Charlotte and Cleveland do not fit the bill, and they should be removed from the list.”

Charlotte, N.C., has no unionized hotels, and its convention center’s employees are not union members, according to Wilhelm’s letter. Cleveland has some union hotels, but only a handful in the downtown area and about 10 in the larger region; they belong to a competing union, Workers United.

“Employees at union hotels are far more likely than employees in non-union hotels to get the sort of basic fair treatment for which the Democratic Party stands — good wages, affordable health benefits, stable long-term positions, and respect and a voice on the job,” Wilhelm wrote. “For these reasons, those employees are more likely to provide delegates and guests with better service as well.” [...]

A spokesman for the DNC, Hari Sevugan, said, “As always, we are looking at a number of factors and will have an announcement in the coming months.”

Obviously, union representation turned out to not at all be a factor for the DNC’s 2012 convention.

The DNC had a similar problem in Denver, CO for the 2008 convention, but labor had organized at least one hotel ahead of the convention. While Colorado has low union representation, the percentage of workers in unions is at least double that of North Carolina.

I’m told that the DNC will work with local officials and venues in Charlotte ahead of the convention to address the complete lack of union members. I’m not holding my breath, though, for the least union state in the country to make any progress on respecting workers by the time Barack Obama is renominated in a venue without a single employee represented by a union.

UPDATE: FWIW, some comments from local unions back in November – the gist is, select Charlotte, and then we’ll figure it out if people complain.

“We believe it will be a tremendous economic boost not only for the Charlotte metro area but for the entire state,” said James Andrews, president of the state’s AFL-CIO. “We believe there will be jobs for our workers and others.” [...]

“We feel like our bid is strong the way it is,” said Will Miller, acting executive director of “Charlotte in 2012.”

“And we’ve made it clear from the beginning that should this become an issue, we are happy to meet with folks to work through those issues, just like they did in Denver.”

Claude Gray, president of Teamsters Local 391 in Greensboro, wrote DNC Chairman Tim Kaine earlier this year in support of Charlotte’s bid. He said the Teamsters represent about 4,000 drivers in the Charlotte area who would benefit from the influx of convention-goers.

Dana Cope, executive director of the 55,000-member State Employees Association, said his group hasn’t taken a stand on the convention. He’s talked to Charlotte leaders about creating a more labor-friendly environment.

“We can always address it like we did in Denver,” he said, “so that gives me a lot of hope that we can still land it in Charlotte.”

UPDATE II: On MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell actually asked DNC Chair Tim Kaine why the party chose the home state of Bank of America and a right-to-work state, asking Kaine, “I defy you to find a labor hotel for these delegates, for all the AFL-CIO folks coming to Charlotte.

First off, when was the last time you heard a reporter or host even consider the words “right-to-work?” Second, Kaine predictably dodged the question, giving slight praise to the AFL-CIO. Kaine goes on to talk about new industries in North Carolina.

Kaine revealed though that President Barack Obama does not see unions as part of the “innovation economy,” and does not believe that unions to represent workers are part of the story to tell to Americans.. Video and transcript below.

Mitchell: What about the fact that it is a right-to-work state? I defy you to find a labor hotel for these delegates, for all the AFL-CIO folks coming to Charlotte.

Kaine: Andrea, the AFL-CIO has very good presence in North Carolina, some great leadership. The fact of the matter is there are plusses and minuses with each of the four cities. When we look at North Carolina we feel there’s a good story to tell. The President last week in the State of the Union talked about the “innovation economy….”

The protest — aimed at the Pulte Group, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders — quickly turned into a scrum as workers wearing hardhats and shouting through bullhorns overwhelmed the security staff at the JW Marriott, bursting into a crowded conference room before a stunned crowd of bankers.

Shouting “Where are the jobs?” and “Where is the money?” the protesters from the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, many in overalls and helmets, said taxpayers have provided $900 million in tax breaks to Pulte with the aim of creating jobs. They said they haven’t seen the results they were promised.

“Those tax breaks were supposed to create jobs,” Wayne Peworchik, one of the protesters, said. “That was President Obama’s and Congress’s intent.”

“Instead, Pulte laid off workers,” Peworchik said.

Hilariously, the banksters fled. Scared of the little people, obviously. Tweets from Jon Prior, a reporter in the room, wrote that “banksters and regulators fled” upon the start of the protest:

Even better: the banksters say that they’d have engaged with the workers if they had “worn a suit and asked a question without making a scene.” These fucking guys!

PaulVA at Daily Kos has background on Pulte’s abuse of taxdollars meant for job creation:

Tucked within the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 (WHBA) was a tax carry-back provision.  It allows homebuilders to count the losses of 2008 and 2009 against taxes paid up to 5 years ago—during their peak profit years.   In short, the act allowed for a big tax refund pay-off for big builders, particularly the biggest of them all, PulteGroup.

During PulteGroup’s fourth quarter 2009 earnings call, the company announced that it expected a tax refund of approximately $955 million, $917 million of which would come from the tax loss carry back .  Several months later, PulteGroup received $880 million in tax refunds for 2009 thanks to the net operating loss (NOL) tax carry back provision of the Act.

The WHBA Act was intended by Congress and President Obama as a job creation measure.  The fact sheet on the legislation stated, “Today President Obama signed legislation to help create jobs by providing tax cuts for homebuyers and businesses, while providing much-needed support for workers who are still struggling to find jobs.”

Later in 2009, an investment analyst from Barclays Capital asked Pulte’s CEO what the company’s priorities were for allocating their cash, which after the tax refund would be close to $3 billion in cash.  In his response, CFO Roger Cregg mentioned land, land acquisition, and debt restructuring – but not job creation.

On November 3, 2010, Putle’s CEO announced “approximately $7 million for employee severance and related cost, associated with organizational changes and operations realignment implemented during the quarter.”    Just recently, Pulte laid off another 350 workers at a plant in Phoenix, AZ.

More of this, please.

Labor unions came out in force against the Obama Administration’s NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade deal today, breaking nearly a week of silence since the agreement was dropped late Friday night.

The AFL-CIO labor federation, the United Steelworkers (USW), and the Communications Workers (CWA) all released simultaneous statements Thursday afternoon saying they would oppose the Korea Free Trade deal. (UPDATE: Can’t forget about the International Association of Machinists [IAM].)

The only labor organizations supporting the New NAFTA are the UAW, which endorsed simply to thank the administration for being included in the talks that will shift 159,000 jobs overseas, and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), whose members has about as much of a stake in Korea Free Trade as the Writers Guild. (Think of the UFCW’s support for the Korea deal like the relevance of those mayors the White House trotted out in support of the Obama-McConnell tax deal.)

In years past, labor unions would have been among the first to vociferously denounce NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreements. But thanks to the UAW jumping the gun to screw its own members, as well as strong pressure from the Obama Administration, labor organizations were forced to hold their opposition for days.

Now with 3 major unions and the AFL-CIO opposed to the NAFTA-style deal, the fight can begin to stop this new NAFTA. Sign our petition to Congress to stop the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement.

Key grafs from each of the opposition statements below.

AFL-CIO:

The experiences of union members and working people with too many flawed trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization do not justify optimism that this deal will generate the promised new jobs. We’ve seen U.S. multinational companies take advantage of the investment and other corporate protections in past trade deals to shift production offshore, while maintaining access to the U.S. consumer market and undermining the jobs, wages and bargaining power of American workers.And the results have been catastrophic, with chronic and unsustainable trade deficits that sap economic growth and domestic job creation.

So long as these agreements fall short of protecting the broad interests of American workers and their counterparts around the world in these uncertain economic times, we will oppose them.

USW:

Our members live with the effects of trade every day and recognize that we live in a global economy. Today’s trade situation has cost the jobs of too many of our members, and they are looking for a change in trade policy that will advance their interests, as well as those of others living around the globe. This agreement, however, does not represent the change in trade policy that will advance American workers’ interests.

South Korea is a strong ally that deserves our friendship and support. They have it. But we do not need to inflict further damage to our manufacturing sector and the lives and livelihoods of our workers to prove the strength of our alliance. We have concluded that, while improved, it still does not merit USW support, and we will oppose its passage.

CWA:

This agreement gives investment and legal protections to large multi-national corporations which shift jobs offshore in search of the lowest labor and environmental costs and highest profits.  With no counter balance, multi-national corporations whipsaw workers and nations to prevent and eliminate bargaining rights. KORUS, as negotiated, does not create an economic and collective bargaining rights framework to support the aspirations of US and Korean workers. [...]

Our current economic climate simply cannot support a trade agreement that does not address U.S. workers’ rights and will cost more U.S. jobs.  Further, the Korean union movement strongly opposes the agreement.  So long as KORUS falls short of protecting the broad interests of American and Korean workers in these uncertain economic times, we will oppose it.

IAM:

Thomas Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists, voiced concern that the agreement would increase imports of aircraft components from Korea, endangering the jobs of his union’s members. “We see it as just a repeat of Nafta,” he said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement, ratified in 1993, which removed many trade barriers among the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Mr. Buffenbarger said that the Korea agreement, like Nafta, promoted free trade, but not fair trade, by increasing imports made by lower-paid workers in other countries. “It helps corporations, but it really doesn’t help workers,” he said.

UAW President Bob King

When the White House dropped the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade deal at 7pm Friday night, it was followed by an even-later Friday night news dump from the one union with a stake in the agreement. Around 10:30pm, the United Auto Workers (UAW) released a statement of its support for the job-killing trade agreement with Korea, claiming that its members would actually benefit from the deal.

UAW President Bob King tells a more revealing story about the union’s curious support for the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade deal, though. In an interview with labor reporter Mike Elk for In These Times, King makes the shocking admission that the union endorsed the deal simply to “reward the [Obama] Administration for good behavior” just for including the unions in the discussions.

King countered that the deal was not perfect; there were many things he objected to about the agreement. However, King added that, “It was important to endorse in order to reward the administration for its good behavior of including labor in negotiations.”

So the White House includes UAW to some extent in its negotiation of yet another NAFTA-style free trade deal, and despite tremendous opposition from virtually every other union and his own staff, Bob King unilaterally decided to endorse the Korea deal “to reward the administration for its good behavior.”

Bob King appears to live in an alternate universe in which the White House has even thought of “good behavior” when dealing with major priorities from labor unions. That universe also doesn’t account for the fact that the best-case scenario for the UAW is 800 new jobs at most from this deal.

It appears as though King stands virtually alone in the AFL-CIO for endorsing the deal. Steelworkers President Leo Gerard took a swipe at King for failing to consult his own members and other unions before endorsing late Friday night. But some of the harshest public criticism yet comes from inside the UAW. Labor Notes reports that one UAW official slammed King’s endorsement as “hell of a thing to do, forsaking everybody’s interest for your own.” Local leaders aren’t happy, either.

UAW sources suggest King felt he had to back the trade deal as payback to Obama for pumping billions into failing automakers in 2009—although the bailout of Chrysler and GM laid off tens of thousands of workers and cut pay—in half—for future auto workers.

There was little understanding why King would go out on his own on such a key issue to labor. He told In These Times it was important to stay “relevant.”

“This is an about-face for the UAW and is flying in the face of the AFL-CIO,” one UAW official said. “A resolution passed at our last convention calling for fundamental changes to the Korea deal, and it didn’t happen. King just went ahead and approved it. It’s a hell of a thing to do, forsaking everybody’s interest for your own.”

Local leaders were taken off guard by King’s backing for the pact.

Joe Cardona is second VP of Local 174 near Detroit, which has a history of actively opposing free trade agreements. Cardona was surprised by King’s support and said, “There’s not a lot of happy people around here,” but, citing King’s commitment to solidarity with workers in other countries, added, “Sometimes you gotta go down a road you’re not used to going down and I hope it’s where we need to be.”

On the question whether King’s stance was quid pro quo for the bailout, he said, “I’m curious as to what was said to our organization when we were on the edge of the cliff.”

Mike Elk has more on the internal politics of King’s election, which aren’t so pretty, either.

In short, Bob King took the UAW out on a limb in backing the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade deal. It looks like the rest of labor is about ready to start sawing off that limb.

More Firedoglake coverage of the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade deal.

Coming soon to a town near you: NAFTA 2.0! via Tom Giebel on flickr

In the 14 hours since the White House dumped the news of a NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement on a Friday night, labor unions are deafly silent in opposing this job-killing agreement.

UAW came out in support, but to our count, no other unions have said a word. Firedoglake reported last night that President Obama, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, and Members of Congress worked the phones yesterday to keep unions quiet. The Steelworkers are reportedly on the fence about supporting, and their goal for the AFL-CIO is neutrality, or silence. So far, it’s working.

Just so we’re on the same page, Obama is continuing Bush’s unfair NAFTA-style free trade agreement with Korea with effectively none of the changes he promised. Public Citizen sums it up:

The Korea FTA text contains the extreme investor rights that promote offshoring; the private enforcement of those rights that had led to serial attacks on domestic environmental, health, and other safeguards; a ban on Buy America; limits on financial service regulation (recall, this is a 2007 pre-crisis text with all of the crazy extreme deregulation language of past Bush FTAs) and more of the most damaging NAFTA-style provisions Obama promised to fix.

The UAW is joined in supporting the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement by such protectors of working people as: US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue; President of the National Association of Manufacturers John Engler; Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit; JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon; Amway CEO and top Republican funder Dick DeVos; Big Bank lobby group Financial Services Roundtable President Steve Bartlett; and more.

That’s just who the White House trumpeted in their press push. And that’s who the UAW stands with, as does any union who not just supports, but fails to oppose the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade Agreement.

In the absence of any opposition from anyone in labor on the new NAFTA, I thought I’d do a public service and show where labor and its allies used to stand on this NAFTA-style agreement, before they were pushed back into the veal pen.

I’m sure it’ll be easy for these organizations to just copy and paste their previous opposition, since that’s what this agreement does. I’m looking forwarding to hearing anything from any of these entities to oppose NAFTA 2.0.

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO, 11/18/10.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Nov. 16 declined to say whether his organization would be able to support a final deal on the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement that only deals with the issues of improved market access for U.S. auto and beef exports, even though the AFL-CIO has pushed for broader changes.

In a conference call with reporters, Trumka refused to speculate on what a final deal on changes to the FTA could look like and how the AFL-CIO would respond. “We will have to see whether the improvements made make it more acceptable, and then we’ll make a decision,” he said. In its current form, the FTA is far from acceptable, he added.

“[I]f it doesn’t meet the needs of the American people and the American economy, then we’ll oppose it,” he said, in reference to the FTA. He argued that faulty trade deals have for decades “hollowed out the core” of the U.S. economy.

110 House Democrats, 7/22/10.

More than 100 U.S. Democratic lawmakers asked on Thursday to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss their concerns about his plan to seek congressional approval of a trade deal with South Korea.

“At a time when our economy is struggling to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression, it is unthinkable to consider moving forward with another job-killing FTA,” the 110 members of the U.S. House of Representatives said in a letter to Obama.

The letter underscores the battle Obama faces within his own party unless he persuades South Korea to make substantial changes to the agreement it negotiated three years ago with the administration of former President George W. Bush.

Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO, 6/29/10.

We remain deeply concerned about and strongly opposed to the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement as negotiated by the Bush Administration. The agreement would exacerbate our already lopsided trade relationship with South Korea, putting at risk thousands of good U.S. jobs in the auto, steel, and other industrial sectors. [...]

This flawed agreement is the last thing working people need. With a fragile and incomplete economic recovery, and unemployment estimated to remain near 10 percent for the foreseeable future, we should not be putting in place new trade agreements that will speed up the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Senator Barack Obama, 4/26/08.

“The only trade agreements I believe in are ones that put workers first,” Sen. Obama told members of the United Auto Workers in November. “Because trade deals aren’t good for the American people if they aren’t good for working people. That’s why I opposed CAFTA. That’s why I oppose the South Korea Free Trade Agreement.”

UAW Statement, 5/1/07.

KMWU and UAW firmly call on the Korean National Assembly and the U.S. Congress to reject the KORUS FTA. With the conclusion of the FTA negotiations, many commentators have framed the discussion largely in terms of a worker “zero sum game,” by focusing on how much and how quickly each nation’s tariffs would be reduced. More importantly, the FTA will lead to an acceleration of capital mobility and financial speculation, thereby pitting American workers against Korean workers in unlimited restructuring and driving down wages, employment stability and working conditions.

John Sweeney, then-President of the AFL-CIO, 4/2/07.

Working people in the United States and South Korea join today in vigorously opposing the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), and we will send a powerful message to the U.S. Congress and the Korean Parliament that any trade agreement between our countries must protect the fundamental rights of workers and contribute to the creation of good jobs in both countries.

The agreement, which is the largest since the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), will not benefit the working people of the United States or South Korea. The AFL-CIO along with our Korean union counterparts, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) strongly oppose any agreement that will hurt working families, farmers, and domestic producers in both countries. This flawed deal contains no enforceable protections for core workers’ rights, and it will undermine both governments’ ability to provide affordable and high-quality public and social services, and to protect food safety, the environment, and public health.

AFL-CIO and Change to Win joint statement, 2/17/07.

We believe that the current model agreement, which so far has provided enormous benefits for a disproportionate few, will not likely generate widely shared economic prosperity for the majority of persons in the U.S. and South Korea.  Indeed, some of the provisions under negotiation could jeopardize important public interest gains or narrow the policy space of governments to respond to the needs or wants of their citizens.

Anna Burger, Chairwoman of Change to Win, 6/9/06.

“This administration seems to think that ‘free trade’ means they get to freely trade workers’ rights and protections for the benefit and profit of global corporations,” the chair of Change to Win, Anna Burger, said in a statement. “We need fair trade, not trade that leads to fewer jobs, lower pay, worsened working conditions, and environmental degradation.”

U.S. labor groups compared a possible FTA with Korea with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

At issue was an employee complaining about her supervisor on her Facebook wall, which solicited feedback from other co-workers. While the employer fired the person who originally posted the complaint to Facebook, the NLRB ruled yesterday that the employee should not have been fired.

The labor relations board announced last week that it had filed a complaint against an ambulance service, American Medical Response of Connecticut, that fired an emergency medical technician, accusing her, among other things, of violating a policy that bars employees from depicting the company “in any way” on Facebook or other social media sites in which they post pictures of themselves.

Lafe Solomon, the board’s acting general counsel, said, “This is a fairly straightforward case under the National Labor Relations Act — whether it takes place on Facebook or at the water cooler, it was employees talking jointly about working conditions, in this case about their supervisor, and they have a right to do that.”

This is a big step forward for workers, who don’t necessarily have to fear being fired for discussing their work on Facebook with coworkers on their own time. But the key phrase here is “with coworkers” – there may be a danger of an employer taking disciplinary action if an employee takes to Facebook about their work, but doesn’t involve coworkers in the discussion.

The labor board said that her comments “drew supportive responses from her co-workers” and led to further negative comments about the supervisor. Mr. Kreisberg said: “You’re allowed to talk about your supervisor with your co-workers. You’re allowed to communicate the concerns and criticisms you have. The only difference in this case is she did it on Facebook and did it on her own time and her own computer.”

An administrative law judge is scheduled to begin hearing the case on Jan. 25. Marshall B. Babson, a member of the National Labor Relations Board in the 1980s, said a broad company rule that says one cannot make disparaging comments about supervisors is clearly illegal under labor law. But he said an employee’s criticizing a company or supervisor on Facebook was not necessarily protected activity.

“There will arguably be cases where it is not concerted activity,” Mr. Babson said, suggesting that if a worker lashed out in a post against a supervisor but was not communicating with co-workers, that type of comment might not be protected.

If the Facebook conversation involves several co-workers, however, it is far more likely to be viewed as “concerted protected activity,” he said.

While this is a step forward for employees’ digital rights, there’s much ground to be made up. The NLRB still allows employers to ban employees from using office email to discuss union activity. But having Facebook discussions as protected speech is a big deal for workers’ rights.