Legal Question in Employment Law in South Carolina

office gossip

my employer just enacted a policy for zero tolerance for gossip in the work place, which i support. the only quam i have with it is that in the policy, it did not state what deemed as gossip. i found this a bit vague and disturbing. when i asked about it i was informed that there was no need to define it because everyone knew what it meant. i think that leaving it up to interpretation could cause problems down the road, the least of which not being violation of someone's constitutional right to free speech. does a company when enacting a policy have to provide an explanation? as employees do we not have the right since we could be fired to have it clearly defined?


Asked on 4/30/08, 8:00 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Sheryl Schelin Law Office of Sheryl Schelin

Re: office gossip

No, you have no legal rights to set, influence, revise, or even have input on business policy. Those are purely business decisions which convey no legal rights or obligations to employees.

Remember that in SC, as in most states, absent a written contract of employment, your employer can fire you at will. That means "for any reason, even a bad reason, or no reason at all." Your obligations to comport your behavior to policies is not a contractual one -- it's simply the minimal expected behavior from your employer. There are no guarantees, which means that there is no legal right to have those rights/obligations clearly defined in the policies, as there would be in a statute, for instance (which is the right to due process).

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Answered on 4/30/08, 8:11 pm


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