Employee sacked for Facebook comment claims victory

An employee sacked for making critical comments about a supervisor on Facebook has reached a settlement over the dismissal. But the deal means the case stopped short of a legal ruling on the subject.

The case involved Dawnmarie Souza who worked for the ambulance organization American Medial Response of Connecticut. She was suspended and then fired over comments made on her Facebook account in which she twice posted what the National Labor Relations Board called a “negative remark”; PC World reports the post contained “dick” and “scumbag.”

The board agreed to file a complaint against the employer. However, the two sides have reached an agreement under which the company will:

revise its overly-broad rules to ensure that they do not improperly restrict employees from discussing their wages, hours and working conditions with co-workers andย others while not at work, and that [in future] they would not discipline or discharge employees for engaging in such discussions.

The key there is that existing labor laws only protect discussions about work conditions while employees are in the workplace.

While the settlement appears to be a blow for the position of the employers, there are several factors that mean this isn’t necessarily ย — as some have implied — a green light to let rip on your boss when you get online.

For example, one of the key points of this complaint was that Souza was refused permission to have union representation when brought in to explain her comments. While that was settled in a separate agreement, the company may well have considered it was on to a sure loser over that issue and decided to cut its losses on the entire case.

It’s also significant that the issue never got as far as a court ruling. While the outcome will mean employers can be more confident in expecting complaints for similar activity in the future, were a case to make it as far as a judge, this wouldn’t be classed as a formal legal precedent.

The case also leaves a gray area about what is and isn’t acceptable in public comments by employees. While this particular employer has accepted that discussing work conditions in an online forum is acceptable, there’s no guarantee that a worker crossing the line into derogatory or even defamatory comments would escape disciplinary action.

(Image credit: CNN)



Angry Birds Bento Box [Pic]

Oh Yum. I’d say this one looks even better than the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions we featured a few weeks ago.

[Via | Source]



Darth Wonka [Pic]

Darth Wonka

I always felt that the boat ride in the original Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory was pretty terrifying (and it’s even more frightening when played backwards), and if anyone could bring me over to the Dark Side, it would be with waterfalls of chocolate. And now, thanks to artist Pauline Acalin, we can see the Dark Chocolate Lord of Sith in his purple suit.

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More Twaggies

Here are some of the latest and greatest Twaggies cartoons. In case you missed our last post highlighting some of our favorites, that’s right over here. Enjoy!

Twaggies Funny Twitter

Wingardium Leviosa Pole Dancing [Video]

Wow. Just wow. That girl may be powerless with that wand, but she sure knows her way around a pole! ;)

[Via TDW]

Unprotected Twitter posts fair game for journalists

Publicly accessible posts you make on Twitter are not private. As obvious as that might be, one British woman needed a formal adjudication to get that point across.

Sarah Baskerville, a government department employee, had made several posts on Twitter mentioning the fact that she had been hungover while at work, as well as making personal comments about people she had worked with. Two national newspapers reprinted these comments in articles about the views and behavior of public officials.

Whether such comments really count as news is debatable, but isn’t relevant to the legal situation. Instead, Baskerville claimed that it was a breach of privacy to reproduce the comments without permission. She complained to the Press Complaints Commission, which is the self-regulatory body for British newspapers.

According to the commission, Baskerville made two main points: that it was reasonable to expect the message would only be seen by the 700 followers on her account; and that her account was clearly labeled as a personal view that did not reflect her employers.

The newspapers responded by highlighting that, at the time they used the material, Baskerville’s account was not set to private and could be viewed by anybody online. (At the time of writing, that was still the case, although the account appears to be used exclusively for retweeting other posters.)

The commission has now ruled to reject the complaints. It said that not only could anyone have stumbled across the information, but the retweet feature of Twitter meant there was a strong possibility it would be seen by people other than Baskerville’s followers.

One notable point about the case is that the two newspapers stressed that Baskerville had openly used her own name rather than posting anonymously. That raises the question of whether the PCC would come to the same verdict were a newspaper to “expose” the person behind a Twitter account without permission.

Aside from the privacy issue, theoretically British law could be interpreted as meaning that reprinting the Twitter posts was a breach of copyright (a point Baskerville hasn’t pursued legally.) However a fair use clause allows limited quoting for reporting purposes, and it seems highly likely that in a message of no more than 140 characters, quoting a tweet in its entirety would be considered legitimate.