Sacking over emails

[hosedoctor]

Hi guys,my cousin works for a big company and has been sending a few jokes to other workers that to be fair are a bit of the locker room type! He isn't denying he hasn't but it looks like they are going to try to get rid of him over it,now the thing is he has had a good work record for over 20 years and the guy that has brought this all to light was sent one of the jokes three years ago but never said anything about it then. Does this sound a bit like constructive dismissal??

[randlemarcus]

Sounds more like he just clicked OK to the company Acceptable Use of IT Policy, and they are going the really very easy route to headcount reduction.

Questions from me would be:
Is there an acceptable use of IT policy on the Intranet?
Has he read it/indicated he has read it?
Has there been any noise about this before that he has ignored?
Is there any history of it being surfaced and ignored that he might be able to hang a "they treated me differently" hat on?

I'd look at those, have a think about the "locker room" stuff he has been sending, do Marcus's patented "would you be embarrassed for your mother to read it" test, and polish up the CV. Never put anything in writing

[cat with a hat]

A joke from 3 years ago?

Or has it unearthed more recent activity?

[bitchstewie]

Stuff like this is often a bit of a pandoras box.

I suspect your cousin has been caught (reported, whatever) and they're acting on that whilst not going out of their way to find out if he's the only one who was doing it i.e. who clicked the "Forward" button and so on.

I'm certainly not a lawyer or an employment expert but I'd say the basic question is what acceptable/computer usage policy did he agree to, and what does "a bit of the locker room type" actually mean here?

[davepoth]

bhstewie said:

Stuff like this is often a bit of a pandoras box.

I suspect your cousin has been caught (reported, whatever) and they're acting on that whilst not going out of their way to find out if he's the only one who was doing it i.e. who clicked the "Forward" button and so on.

I'm certainly not a lawyer or an employment expert but I'd say the basic question is what acceptable/computer usage policy did he agree to, and what does "a bit of the locker room type" actually mean here?

I'm going to guess "of the type that would make "Chubby" Brown blush".

Your cousin might be being singled out, but he broke a clear policy and if he's the only one that's been complained about then there's not much of an argument here.

[hosedoctor]

Hi guys,thanks for the replys,he has been pulled over the resent ones but he has never had any problems about it before the point I'm trying to make is that why didn't the company pull him regarding it three years ago (he has proof of this) and now they are. I will ask him if he has signed anything about emails. By the way the jokes weren't that bad,but you know how the PC mob are now!

[bitchstewie]

hosedoctor said:

Hi guys,thanks for the replys,he has been pulled over the resent ones but he has never had any problems about it before the point I'm trying to make is that why didn't the company pull him regarding it three years ago (he has proof of this) and now they are. I will ask him if he has signed anything about emails. By the way the jokes weren't that bad,but you know how the PC mob are now!

I'm going to guess that "I've been doing this for years and it's never been an issue" won't go terribly well as a defence.

Do you have an example of one?

[hosedoctor]

Your spot on there,yes he has been doing it for years,but there are others in the company that has been doing it,to be honest I think they are trying to have a clear out? As for a contract regarding IT uses,he hasn't had.

[anonymous-user]

hosedoctor said:

Hi guys,my cousin works for a big company and has been sending a few jokes to other workers that to be fair are a bit of the locker room type! He isn't denying he hasn't but it looks like they are going to try to get rid of him over it,now the thing is he has had a good work record for over 20 years and the guy that has brought this all to light was sent one of the jokes three years ago but never said anything about it then. Does this sound a bit like constructive dismissal??

You appear to have a mistaken notion of what constructive dismissal is. The situation that you describe sounds nothing like constructive dismissal (which occurs when an employee ends the contract of employment in response to a irremediable breach of contract by the employer). Your "cousin" may be at risk of being dismissed (not constructively, but actually). Whether your "cousin" can be fairly dismissed will depend on the facts, and as you are being coy about those no one can give you any meaningful advice.

You need to indicate what your "cousin" wrote, to whom your "cousin" sent the email, and so on. The employer might be relying on its equal opportunity and anti harassment policies, as off colour emails might create an atmosphere that some colleagues might find unpleasant, but all depends on the facts.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 24th January 23:43

[Jasandjules]

You need to have copies of he computer use and harassment policies of the employer to see if there has been any breach.

I take it he has been invited to an investigation meeting? If so he should be provided with copies of the relevant policies there. If none are provided, he needs to ask for them, I would anticipate the letter inviting him to a meeting has identified his breach.

[cirian75]

Having seen this at my old place, this will be a very selective witch hunt to reduce headcount in certain department.

They wanted to sack 6 people in a department, 4 of them were banged to rights, 1 totally deserved it.

the other 2, well, they fought hard, one of them, a woman, well her husband made it plain there would be non legal ramifications if they sacked his wife, what they had on her was weak as she was in the warehouse where everyone left the PC's unlocked so people could just jump on and process orders.


So, a few weeks later, 2 more people got pulled up, and then sacked, so they got their 6, but the 6th fought back, and after much back and forth, was paid off with keep quiet money.

No witch hunt was done to the call centre in the same building though much to the annoyance of the warehouse and repair centre.

[anonymous-user]

I love PH! A single experience becomes the basis for "Oh, this is definitely that". AKA: "Hey, I have no relevant expertise to answer your request, but I do have an anecdote that gives you the answer with total certainty". See also "I am thinking of buying a [make of car]. Should I?" Cue: "My mate's cousin's sister's friend's cleaning lady had one once. The doors fell off, so all [make of car] are st." Continue for 947 pages.

[ToothbrushMan]

Breadvan72 said:

hosedoctor said:

Hi guys,my cousin works for a big company and has been sending a few jokes to other workers that to be fair are a bit of the locker room type! He isn't denying he hasn't but it looks like they are going to try to get rid of him over it,now the thing is he has had a good work record for over 20 years and the guy that has brought this all to light was sent one of the jokes three years ago but never said anything about it then. Does this sound a bit like constructive dismissal??

You appear to have a mistaken notion of what constructive dismissal is. The situation that you describe sounds nothing like constructive dismissal (which occurs when an employee ends the contract of employment in response to a irremediable breach of contract by the employer). Your "cousin" may be at risk of being dismissed (not constructively, but actually). Whether your "cousin" can be fairly dismissed will depend on the facts, and as you are being coy about those no one can give you any meaningful advice.

You need to indicate what your "cousin" wrote, to whom your "cousin" sent the email, and so on. The employer might be relying on its equal opportunity and anti harassment policies, as off colour emails might create an atmosphere that some colleagues might find unpleasant, but all depends on the facts.

Edited by Breadvan72 on Sunday 24th January 23:43

ill chip in. so an employee can dismiss him/herself? that doesnt sound right to me but lets assume youre right, maybe our friend could go the unfair dismissal route?

[anonymous-user]

Well, as I have only been practising employment law for about thirty years, do please feel free to show me that I'm wrong. No employee ever dismisses him/herself. If an employer repudiates the contract and the employee terminates the contract in response to the repudiation, the law treats this as a dismissal by the employer. This is called constructive dismissal. If you think that I am making this up for fun, why not do some Googling?

A constructive dismissal is almost invariably an unfair dismissal, although it would theoretically be possible for a constructive dismissal to be fair (I am not sure that I have ever seen that happen).

What you call "the unfair dismissal route" is open to employees with sufficient qualifying service* who have been actually dismissed or who can prove that they have been constructively dismissed. For the employee, ending the employment and claiming constructive dismissal is usually a high risk option. In the present case, the employee might be better advised to participate in and await the outcome of any disciplinary process relating to the offending emails, but all depends on the facts, and the facts we don't have.


* There are some exceptions to this, not presently relevant.

[AlexC1981]

cirian75 said:

Having seen this at my old place, this will be a very selective witch hunt to reduce headcount in certain department.

Yep. You don't get rid of a good employee of 20 years due to sending a few colourful emails. They want rid of him.

[cat with a hat]

AlexC1981 said:

cirian75 said:

Having seen this at my old place, this will be a very selective witch hunt to reduce headcount in certain department.

Yep. You don't get rid of a good employee of 20 years due to sending a few colourful emails. They want rid of him.

Depends.. Sometimes when they need to cut heads, they will go ahead and do so taking the easiest first.

It might even come from someone who is completely detached or new.

[alfie2244]

AlexC1981 said:

Yep. You don't get rid of a good employee of 20 years due to sending a few colourful emails. They want rid of him.

Cheaper than redundancy perhaps?

[cirian75]

alfie2244 said:

AlexC1981 said:

Yep. You don't get rid of a good employee of 20 years due to sending a few colourful emails. They want rid of him.

Cheaper than redundancy perhaps?

A lot cheaper, so much so its not even funny

[anonymous-user]

Unlike our honerable friend Breadvan, I have no useful advice, but I having no worked for medium to large sized organisations for numerous years I have observed the following:

If a company tries to get rid of you via alleged 'constructive dismissal' or in the case of your cousin, over a misdemeanour, or desperately trying to catch you committing a misdemeanour, then basically they just don't fking like you and want rid of you.

I've never seen whole teams or large numbers of people dismissed for misdemeanours just to reduce staff numbers, but I have no doubt it probably happens.

The flip side to this is I've seen good employees get away with murder just because, well, they are good employees.

The summing up of this waffle is that if suddenly you are seemingly picked on by a company for a minor offence and they try to fire you for it, it's because you are probably crap at your job anyway, or no one in the management likes you. In this case I would simply quit and work somewhere else anyway. Who would want to remain in that situation?

[anonymous-user]

I think it depends upon who saw the e-mail, did it get forwarded on to someone who may have complained about it. At a previous company a chap tried to forward a joke to his wife, got the address wrong and sent it to the HR Director by mistake.

He got sacked, several final written warnings issued, the HR Director sued the company and got a payout...