Legal Question in Employment Law in New Jersey

Blogs and political activity

When an employment contract states that an employee may not engage in any outside employment or hobby that might adversely affect on the company, does that apply to participating in either a paid or unpaid capacity on a group blog with many writers whose predominant focus is political, when done on the employee's own time as a leisure activity and where the employee does not write about or participate in postings dealing with that company or its industry? If another participant writes something adverse about the company, is the employee answerable for that?


Asked on 9/18/08, 11:18 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jennifer Weil Jennifer N. Weil, Esq.

Re: Blogs and political activity

It depends. Is the company engaged in any business that might be affected by the blog? Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and ask yourself if the company would mind your participating in this group blog. A company can generally fire an employee for any reason (so long as it's not illegal discrimination of some sort), unless a contract specifies otherwise. If the statement you cited is from the contract, it sounds pretty broad - *any* hobby that *might* adversely affect the company can be interpreted to mean any blog posting that reflects negatively (somehow) on the company. You have to examine the kind of business the company is engaged in, as well as the content and circumstances of each blog post to truly answer your question. However, you should not be held responsible for something another employee says, unless you own the blog on which that employee is posting. Overall, you should be very careful. If you have any issues that arise from this, you should bring the contract to an attorney for review.

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Answered on 9/18/08, 11:37 am


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