dooced, canadian style

A good art­icle in The Lawyer’s Weekly about someone get­ting doo­ced in Alberta. The short ver­sion: Woman blogs anonym­ously about her super­visors and co-workers, but in a way that makes all of them eas­ily recog­niz­able to any­one in her work place. Oh, and things she says aren’t exactly nice. Her employer fires her as a res­ult. Goes to arbit­ra­tion and the ter­min­a­tion is upheld. Per­haps not all that supris­ing. Any­way, some thoughts and tips from the article:

Although the dis­missal was upheld in Alberta Union, not all Web 2.0 posts that an employer finds dis­taste­ful will provide grounds for dis­cip­line or ter­min­a­tion. Blog­ging or Face­book­ing at work is one thing, but the gen­eral rule regard­ing dis­cip­line for off-duty con­duct is that an employer is not the cus­todian of their employ­ees’ private lives. Excep­tions are made when, as it was found in Alberta Union, the posts irre­par­ably harm the employ­ment rela­tion­ship. This can include con­duct that:

• pre­vents employ­ees from per­form­ing their duties satisfactorily;

• inter­feres with employ­ees’ abil­ity to work effect­ively with fel­low co-workers;

• breaks con­fid­en­ti­al­ity policies or employ­ees’ duty of fidel­ity to the employer;

• har­asses or defames man­age­ment or fel­low employees;

• delib­er­ately attempts to under­mine management’s abil­ity to dir­ect its workforce;

• harms the company’s repu­ta­tion (how­ever, rank and file employ­ees may be held to a lower stand­ard than those employ­ees who hold higher pos­i­tions of trust or responsibility).

Coun­sel should encour­age employ­ers to take meas­ures to pre­vent the sort of con­duct that attracts dis­cip­line in the first place. Hav­ing a dis­cus­sion with employ­ees is a good start. The gen­eral tenor of blogs and social net­work­ing sites is akin to cas­ual con­ver­sa­tion, and, nat­ur­ally, many people will talk about work.

Unfor­tu­nately, as Alberta Union illus­trates, many employ­ees are unaware Web 2.0 con­duct can affect their careers and attract legit­im­ate sanc­tion. Point­ing this out to employ­ees can save both the employer and the employee a lot of grief.

Alberta v. Alberta Union of Pro­vin­cial Employ­ees (R. Griev­ance), [2008] A.G.A.A. No. 20

related:

1. Pre­texting, Cana­dian Style
2. being an employee and a (poten­tial) entrepreneur
3. ITAC  —  First Cana­dian Muni­cipal Wire­less Con­fer­ence and Exhibition
4. work life bal­ance is alive and well at 37signals
5. new cana­dian pri­vacy and anti-spam laws  —  updated again