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.

Employment tribunals up again

The news that the number of cases brought to employment tribunals rose by 15 per cent in the year 2006 to 2006 appeared in the news last month, but due to a busy time at work, I never got to mention it on my blog.

The latest statistics for British Employment Tribunals is likely to interest many people from many disciplinary backgrounds.

My interests stems from studying conflict in the workplace and the fact that I teach stuff on industrial conflict to undergraduate students.

Therefore my take on Employment Tribunals is to suggest that declining employee interest in trade unions is not necessarily matched by a decline in employee grievances against employers.

Here are some statistics from the report (link above) that you may find interesting:

Many Employment Tribunal cases involved more than one jurisdiction (complaint).

Of the 238,546 jurisdictions lodged in total:

- 972 were age discrimination claims
- 44,013 were equal pay claims
- 44,491 claims were for unfair dismissal
-28,153 were for sex discrimination (a large number of these were in conjunction with equal pay claims)
- 3,780 were for race discrimination
- 5,533 were for disability discrimination

With the exception of race discrimination, all claims had an upward trend, with equal pay claims showing a 155 per cent increase on 2005-06.

Also see Tribunals Service findings show employment tribunals rose by 15% in 2006-07 (Mike Berrry, Personnel Today) for some further brief commentary on the statistics.

Revenge beyond the workplace

You'd have thought that a modest award at the end of an employment tribunal would have been an end to the matter.

This was not quite the case for a Mr Raine, from Burnhope in County Durham, who was expecting a cheque for the balance of his cash award, following an employment tribunal win.

Instead of a cheque for the entire £2,300 he got a cheque for £1,000 and the remaining amount in coins from 1p to 20p.

The story clearly has a humorous side to it, but it also demonstrates how some employers may view the employment tribunal system.

See Back pay row over crate of coins (BBC News: England) for more details.

Employment tribunal increase despite tougher rules

Two years ago the government changed the rules that concern employment tribunals. The idea was to prevent frivolous claims and to make sure more grievances were resolved in-house.

However, this year has seen a 30 per cent increase in employees taking employers to employment tribunals - to 115,000 - and the government is now talking of making further changes to the system.

In Employment tribunals face review (BBC News: Business) it is clear to see that employer organizations are happy with this move.

It'll be interesting to see what the TUC makes of the rise in employment tribunals and the news that the system is to change yet again.

I'd be interested to know the ratio between those who are members of a union and those who are not who take their employer to an employment tribunal