Case law and social media employee misconduct

An employment tribunal was wrong to conclude that a Scottish Canals employee was unfairly dismissed after he posted Facebook comments boasting of getting drunk while on emergency standby and describing his managers as “wankers” and “pricks”. Stephen Simpson rounds up tribunal decisions reported in the previous week...

 

See Social media misconduct: fair dismissal for Facebook boasts of getting drunk while on standby (Stephen Simpson, Personnel Today) for more details.

Grip tightening on what you can say about employers on the Internet?

According to an article from The Guardian, firms and employment tribunals are finally getting to grips with social networking, in that many companies now have a social media/blogging policy as part of their contractual terms with employees, as well as employment tribunals recently upholding a number of dismissals against employees for gross misconduct relating to blogging about work.

Game over?

Personally, I doubt it, but it will have some affect on what employees write on their Facebook or blog.

In my view this is just more evidence of employers punishing people for the problems they create in the first, i.e. employers manage people badly, the employee has few ways to complain about the employer, the employer finds out and disciplines the employee.

Britain will struggle to emerge from recession if British employers keep leaning on law makers to keep changing employment law to suit their own interests.

For more details see How your Facebook status could put you out of work by Philip Landau.

Work blogger "disciplined" by employer

Only just heard about this particular work blogger - Night Jack (police officer).

Apparently, The Times has named the police officer who keeps the blog - not the first time this paper has outed a high-profile blogger!

Some details...

A serving detective whose anonymous blog carried criticisms of government ministers and police bureaucracy has been disciplined by his force.

The action, by Lancashire Constabulary, follows the exposure of the blogger "Night Jack" by the Times newspaper.

He was unmasked after the High Court rejected his plea that his anonymity be preserved "in the public interest".

Lancashire Constabulary said the blogger, named as Det Con Richard Horton, had received a written warning.

For more details see Force disciplines police blogger (BBC News: UK).

Judging misbehaviour

I always like it when workplace misbehaviour makes it into the news, but especially so if it adds an angle not usually explored.

In The Guardian the other day (Monday, I think) there was such an article on 'misbehaving judges'!

I'm not sure whether such acts described in the article fit in with what I'd call workplace misbehaviour, but then again, even I'd have to admit, that it's such an ambiguous subject.

The main thing about the article is that disciplinary action taken against judges is not public information, hence the Guardian's freedom of information case.

See Names of misbehaving judges 'should be made public' (by Rob Evans and Afua Hirsch) for more details.