IN MEMORIAM
L ARRY K ENNEY ,
former president of the
Washington State La-
bor Council, passed
away May 14 at his
home in Seattle after a
long illness. He was
surrounded by his
wife, former Rep.
Phyllis Gutiérrez Kenney, and his chil-
dren. He was 82.
L AWRENCE K ENNEY was born May
15, 1930, in Chicago. Kenney was
raised in the Bremerton area, where he
graduated from Bremerton High
School in 1947. He worked for 17
years as a newspaper and job shop
printer. He was an activist in the Inter-
national Typographical Union. He
served a six-year apprenticeship at the
San Francisco Chronicle and worked at
The Seattle Times and The Seattle
Post-Intelligencer. While working at
the P-I, Kenney attended the University
of Washington, where he earned his de-
gree in economics. After graduation, he
worked as a certified public account-
ant.
Kenney was hired by the Washing-
ton State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, in
1969 to serve as research director. He
was elected secretary-treasurer in 1980,
serving with then-President Marvin
Williams. In 1986, Kenney was elected
WSLC president, a position he held un-
til 1993.
In June of 1986, Kenney and the
WSLC voted to use the Labor Press as
a source of communication for its affil-
iated local unions and trade councils.
WSLC published a one- or two-page
newsletter once a month in the Labor
Press. The action resulted in a name-
change for the newspaper — from Ore-
gon Labor Press to Oregon/Washing-
ton Labor Press — to reflect the
broader coverage. In 1987 the name
was changed again to Northwest Labor
Press.
$17 a month coverage
includes:
After retiring from the WSLC, Ken-
ney served on the Washington State
Board of Tax Appeals from 1993-99
and on the executive board of Energy
Northwest since 2000.
“Larry Kenney’s work and life
made a difference to the labor move-
ment whether it was through strength-
ening the workers’ compensation sys-
tem, running the first minimum wage
initiative in 1988, which included farm
workers and tipped employees, or re-
minding us of the importance of the ju-
dicial system on working peoples’
lives. I will miss Larry Kenney. He will
be missed,” said WSLC President Jeff
Johnson.
A longtime member of the Pacific
Northwest Newspaper Guild, Kenney
previously served on Gov. Booth Gard-
ner’s Council of Economic Advisors,
the Governor’s Commission on Ac-
countability and Efficiency in State
Government, the Economic Develop-
ment Alliance of Washington, and
many other boards, commissions and
civic organizations.
He was a member of the American
Institute of Certified Public Account-
ants and the Washington Society of
Certified Public Accountants.
Kenney is survived by his wife,
Phyllis; two children, Karen Brooks
and Brian Kenney; eight stepchildren;
21 grandchildren, and nine great-
grandchildren.
A public memorial service was held
June 1 in Seattle.
J AMES N ESBIT S WANBECK , a 48-
year member of Plumbers and Fitters
Local 290, passed away April 14, four
days shy of his 85th birthday.
Swanbeck was born April 18, 1928,
in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan,
Canada. He grew up in Vancouver,
B.C., and after high school enlisted in
the Royal Canadian Navy.
He married Lillian Honey on Oct.
20, 1950, in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada. They moved to Portland in
1965. She preceeded him in death in
2008.
“My father would always say the
two best things he did in his life was to
marry my mother and to join the
union,” said his daughter, Susan Gib-
son.
Swanbeck is survived by his daugh-
ter, and two grandchildren.
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‘Like’ this: Workers’ rights get an
update in the age of social media
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
Once upon a time, complaining
about work might have gotten you
sympathy or advice. In the era of
Facebook, it can get you fired. Em-
ployers all across the country are
disciplining and firing workers for
things they say — outside of work
and on their own time — on web-
sites like Facebook, Twitter and
Youtube.
But as employers increasingly
try to police employees’ after-hours
speech online, state legislatures and
the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) are stepping up to draw the
line about what’s protected. Seven
states have passed laws barring
companies from asking employees
or job applicants for their social net-
work passwords, with Oregon the
latest to do so.
And in the last year, the NLRB
has targeted companies for “over-
broad” social media policies that vi-
olate the National Labor Relations
Act. That law guarantees workers
rights to unionize — or even just
take “concerted activity” for the
purpose of “mutual aid or protec-
tion.”
The NLRB’s foray into social me-
dia began with Dawnmarie Souza, an
emergency medical technician in New
Haven, Connecticut, who was refused
union representation during a Nov. 8,
2009, interrogation. Souza went home
and posted derogatory comments on
her Facebook timeline about her su-
pervisor — referring to him as a “17,”
ambulance code for a psychiatric pa-
tient, and calling him several other
names. Her co-workers responded.
Souza’s employer, American Med-
ical Response (AMR), then fired her
for violating its internet posting policy,
which forbade “defamatory comments
when discussing the company or the
employee’s superiors, co-workers
and/or competitors.”
Her union, Teamsters Local 443,
filed a charge with the NLRB. The
agency investigated, and determined
that she was fired illegally, and also,
that AMR’s policy was unlawfully
over-broad, because employees would
reasonably believe that it prohibited
rights that are guaranteed under the
National Labor Relations Act. As part
of a legal settlement, AMR agreed to
revise its policy.
It was the NLRB’s first social me-
dia case. The agency soon had its
hands full with employer policy manu-
als.
• At Target, an employee handbook
barred workers from releasing “confi-
dential information” on social media,
or anywhere else. “Watch what you
say,” the manual commanded. “Don’t
have conversations regarding confi-
dential information in the break room
or in any other open area.” “Never
share confidential information with
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
another team member unless they have
a need to know the information to do
their job. If you need to share confi-
dential information with someone out-
side the company, confirm there is
proper authorization.” The manual
even required that workers report to
management if they learn that a co-
worker shared confidential informa-
tion. All these offenses, Target told its
employees, “will result in corrective
action, up to and including termina-
tion,” and “you also may be subject to
legal action, including criminal prose-
cution.”
• A General Motors policy prohib-
ited workers from posting videos, pic-
tures, or quotes without permission,
barred them from posting images of
employers logos or trademarks, and
required workers to report co-workers
for “unusual or inappropriate” social
media activity. “Think carefully about
‘friending’ co-workers . . . on external
social media sites,” General Motors
told its employees. “If you engage in a
discussion related to [GM], in addition
to disclosing that you work for [GM]
and that your views are personal, you
must also be sure that your posts are
completely accurate and not mislead-
ing and that they do not reveal non-
public company information on any
public site. Non-public information in-
cludes: Information that has not al-
ready been disclosed by authorized
persons in a public forum; and Per-
sonal information about another [GM]
employee, such as his or her medical
condition, performance, compensation
or status in the company. Do not incor-
porate [GM] logos, trademarks or
other assets in your posts.
• At Walmart, a policy restricted
communications with media and
government agencies.
In each case, NLRB found that
workers would reasonably interpret
the policies as prohibiting them
from discussing and disclosing their
own and co-workers wages and
working conditions — and the
agency ordered the policies re-
moved. Many of the policies can be
made legal, however, if they make
clear that they don’t bar workers
from discussing wages and working
conditions with co-workers.
The NLRB has been trying to get
word out to employers about what’s
legal. The rules, outlined in a 2012
agency memo, don’t give workers a
blanket legal protection to say what-
ever they want about an employer.
Social media comments are not
protected if they are mere griping,
as opposed to “group action.” Nor
are complaints protected if they
aren’t related to working conditions,
or if they’re specifically aimed at
other than co-workers.
A crime reporter at The Arizona
Daily Star was fired, for example,
after he tweeted disrespectful com-
ments about homicide. NLRB offi-
cials found the dismissal legal, saying
the posts were individual, not con-
certed activity — and weren’t about
working conditions.
Similarly, after a fire services com-
pany fired an employee for criticizing
the company on the Facebook page of
her U.S. senator, the NLRB found “no
evidence of concerted activity” be-
cause the employee was acting alone,
and wasn’t using the post to reach out
to co-workers.
It might be legal to fire someone for
a post that said, “our customer service
sucks.” But if the post said, “our cus-
tomer service sucks because of poor
wages and understaffing,” that could
be protected, because it could be inter-
preted as an opening to concerted ac-
tivity.
The agency looks at it case by case.
And cases keep coming.
NW Oregon Labor
Council awards
dinner June 8
The Northwest Oregon Labor
Council will host the 16th annual La-
bor Appreciation and Recognition
Night Saturday, June 8, at Milwaukie
Elks Lodge, 13121 SE McLoughlin
Blvd. Dinner tickets are $20 per per-
son. Raffle tickets also will be sold for
$1 each or seven for $5.
The dinner and awards ceremony
serves as a fundraiser for Labor’s Com-
munity Service Agency.
For more information, call 503-235-
9444.
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