Dismissed! Wrrongful? Facebook Issue! Please help!

[Tman]

And the reply will be along the lines of "is it reasonable that employees would need to be specifically briefed on everything they can't do, (which is clearly impractical) or is it more reasonable to expect that employees in general would appreciate that this Facebook act would land them in hot water with the employer?"
There have been other cases where employees have been disciplined or sacked over Face book entries, so to say "no-one told me" or "I didn't know" is a non-starter.

[fishtank]

And the reply will be along the lines of "is it reasonable that employees would need to be specifically briefed on everything they can't do, (which is clearly impractical) or is it more reasonable to expect that employees in general would appreciate that this Facebook act would land them in hot water with the employer?"
There have been other cases where employees have been disciplined or sacked over Face book entries, so to say "no-one told me" or "I didn't know" is a non-starter.

The Code of Business Standards contains the paragraph...

3. Observing this Code
All employees and agents have a duty to uphold the standards set out in this Code,
and managers have a responsibility to ensure that their teams know about it and
observe it. It forms part of the company rules which you must follow as part of your
employment. So you need to be aware that any breach of this Code may be dealt with
under the Conduct Code, and that gross misconduct could result in your dismissal.

Royal Mail does not have a joined up computer usage/social media policy,that is a weakness which can and will be exploited at tribunal.
At conference in 2010 Motion 70 was carried noting great concern Royal Mail’s attempts to bring Bullying and Harassments and Conduct Code charges against CWU members through comments made on social networking websites. The PEC were instructed to seek agreement with Royal Mail Group, Quadrant and Romec that addresses the issue and sets out a joint code of practice for each business which includes safeguards for all our members across the postal constituency.
I've heard nothing since...no surprise.

You are right however that the company is not required to explain every single aspect of what it considers to be acceptable standards to it's employees and some of what goes on using Facebook would simply come under general bullying or bringing the company into disrepute in the same way as if it was written on a piece of paper or said face to face.

[Tman]

Actually RM has laid-down guidelines on PC usage for employees and they're quite specific, but they're for employees at work on work PCs. I don't believe many employers (at least, none well-publicised) that have specific guidelines for employees outside of work time and on home PCs regarding Facebook etc, although it would appear (as in the recent Boots employees case) that companies do research and log details posted on social networking sites.

It would be a legal minefield for any company to get into the "you may do this but you cannot do that on Facebook" details, so presumably most are more than happy just to say "don't do it" and simply deal with those who don't comply.

I still believe that the "no-one explained it to me" defence is just lame though. It rarely seems to work.

[baskie2000]

i'm unsure as to what to do. I know that no one in my office has been briefed or had a WTL about how royal mail expects us to conduct ourselves outside of work hours on social networking sights!
and surely stalking myself and other on facebook for 9 months isn't on either. Has my manager followed RIPA?? is he allowed to collection sacakable information on me for this long??

[fishtank]

I still believe that the "no-one explained it to me" defence is just lame though. It rarely seems to work.

I agree but only a fool would go into a tribunal armed only with something like that.
It would help your case...that's all.
In this case it would appear that the manager already had all of the facts used to dismiss at his disposal prior to him deciding only to issue a reprimand.
If that can be proven it's a much stronger case.

[hantsman]

I will do my best to explain what happened!

Firstly and foremost i will take you back to december 2011 when i was taken into the office about a comment i had written on facebook which i deleted just before i went into the office at my union reps order!
i was then accused of being a racist by my manager after explaining i am far from it! he said he didnt believe me ect.....
a few days later he calls me back into the office and after looking at the facts he decides to let me off with a warning, and tells me not to write anything on facebook again and that he has 'drawn a line in the sand'
after talking to my line manager he also says, dont put anything on facebook, be ever so careful! and i have!
about 9 weeks ago i get called into the office and there are my union reps, and manager and line manager. Cut a long sotry short they suspended me with full pay whilst investigating comments on facebook that bring royal mail into disrepute! (3 off us in total, 2 got sacked)
On the FFI i am confronted with 3 articles that are screen shots from my facebook acocunt dated

24th April 2011
Aug 2011
Sep 2011

(all of which were in my bosses posestion before he spoke to me in december 2011)

After 8 weeks of suspension and formal meeting ect i was dimissed. me and my union reps are annoyed as that i was spoken to in december with all the current evidence for my dimissal in his posestion and yet failed to raise them! He has waited until the change over was about to begin and decided to bring it up and get rid of 3 of us if he could (all 32hour contracts)
Basicaly he neglectied to raise the evidence he had before and simply said " i didnt know about this until now" which is bull to be honest.

Do i have a genuine case in appeal??? me and my unuion feel we do as he followed procedure in december and 'nipped it in the bud'
can he then go back and do me for GM after i have done nothing wrong since the meeting in december???

hope i kept it clear and relativly striaght forward!

Any feedback would be ideal!

Matt

Get the appeal in anyway, have you filed an ET yet?

[baskie2000]

I will do my best to explain what happened!

Firstly and foremost i will take you back to december 2011 when i was taken into the office about a comment i had written on facebook which i deleted just before i went into the office at my union reps order!
i was then accused of being a racist by my manager after explaining i am far from it! he said he didnt believe me ect.....
a few days later he calls me back into the office and after looking at the facts he decides to let me off with a warning, and tells me not to write anything on facebook again and that he has 'drawn a line in the sand'
after talking to my line manager he also says, dont put anything on facebook, be ever so careful! and i have!
about 9 weeks ago i get called into the office and there are my union reps, and manager and line manager. Cut a long sotry short they suspended me with full pay whilst investigating comments on facebook that bring royal mail into disrepute! (3 off us in total, 2 got sacked)
On the FFI i am confronted with 3 articles that are screen shots from my facebook acocunt dated

24th April 2011
Aug 2011
Sep 2011

(all of which were in my bosses posestion before he spoke to me in december 2011)

After 8 weeks of suspension and formal meeting ect i was dimissed. me and my union reps are annoyed as that i was spoken to in december with all the current evidence for my dimissal in his posestion and yet failed to raise them! He has waited until the change over was about to begin and decided to bring it up and get rid of 3 of us if he could (all 32hour contracts)
Basicaly he neglectied to raise the evidence he had before and simply said " i didnt know about this until now" which is bull to be honest.

Do i have a genuine case in appeal??? me and my unuion feel we do as he followed procedure in december and 'nipped it in the bud'
can he then go back and do me for GM after i have done nothing wrong since the meeting in december???

hope i kept it clear and relativly striaght forward!

Any feedback would be ideal!

Matt

Get the appeal in anyway, have you filed an ET yet?

no nothing filed yet! waiting to be seen by a solicitor and show him all of my appeal and evidence!

[NWpostie]

I know it is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, I think everybody should look at this and learn from it, You won't be the first and you won't be the last, Facebook is a double edged sword, you need to practice prudence and raising your security setting to paranoid, avoid having anyone from work on your friend list, watch what you are saying as it will be recorded, filed away,its the only way to ensure your personal safety, employment future and other fall outs.

Use it for just friends and keep work separate from it, or have two profiles, one for work and friends, clubs or societies.

It is a useful tool for promoting yourself, staying in touch with family and friends, keeping track of your relatives progress growing up or just socialising.

Its all part of the learning curve as Facebook is a recent phenomenon and we are just learning to deal with it, its already out of the Pandora box and you can't put it back in.

[highbury67]

Whilst I understand what has been mentioned, shouldn't there also be an issue about the facebook snoopers who have nothing better to do it seems then look at other people's facebook and make judgements about them. I am not talking particularly about managers here but a few fellow colleagues where I work who seem to have nothing better to do with there lives then pry and make judgement on others facebooks. Shouldn't they be spoken to too? At the very least they are saddos.

NWpostie, I have been a recent victim of comments and judgement about what I put on facebook from one or two people I thought I could trust at work so will take on your advice and put a separate account for people I work with at least.

That said, I think with the victimisation of people on facebook, there is a need for people to be circumspect. Are Royal Mail though covering all types of facebook behaviour or just work related behaviour? For instance, if someone who posts unplesant things about a celebrity etc, will they be found out by Royal Mail should they work for them? I would never do that myself but there are certain of those types on the internet.

[NWpostie]

There have been cases of people who have been prosecuted for making threats or trolling to cause distress recently, they have been prosecuted by the Courts and were given prison sentences or fined along with a criminal conviction.


Any behaviour outside of Royal Mail that can bring the Company's name into disrepute comes under our employment contract, this pre dated the internet and you used to get away with quite a bit if it wasn't picked up the papers at that time, since the social media has taken off, you are more likely to be picked up on any disreputable behaviour if you post it on the internet, one colleague of a friend in another employment was dropped in it as he was supposed to be off sick and had his photo of him drinking in a pub with his mates, fortunately he had a valid reason for it, the person who grassed him was later identified and nobody is speaking to him now in work or outside of work, even the Bosses don't trust him.

[BettySwollocks]

I've seen this happen myself,
a manager got abused on Facebook, 4 people were suspended,
they denied everything, police/cps and lawyers got involved and made attempts to get Facebook to comply and submit all relevant details and evidence,
Facebook refused (could u imagine the backlash from members if FB were willing to handover that kinda stuff),
CPS decided it wasn't worth pursuing,
the 4 involved were given a 2 year serious and made to transfer to other offices,

it's probably too late for you to deny anything now, but i think thats what i would have done.

i'm very careful about what i put on Facebook (and here),
my settings on Facebook are as secure as they can be (no one can see my "wall" unless i have them as a friend - and i'm careful who i accept as a friend).

[POSTMAN]

While i'm not on FB or Twitter in a personal capacity,i am in a RMC one and the things i read.

We have had peeps busted 'defending' Royal Mail online,job title Postie or whatever usually sinks you.

[whatamess!!]

The best thing to do is to come off facebook, it's nothing but trouble. It cost lives, ruins relationships, is one of biggest ways children now get bullied, loses people jobs, it's generally trouble. Do you really have to be friends with people who you never see or don't really like, just to say I got 500 friends!!!!

[highbury67]

I am personally going to be even more careful as a result of who can see ny Facebook or even mentioning at work to people work with as a person I thought I'd could trust used mention by me of non workrelated matter as a way of trying to force me to do what he thought was right and just kept on winding me up. I have defriended him and have been advised to speak to the union. Could I make an issue of it with the union? Also I asked not to work with him but think I mayybe forced to.

[Stormproof]

I've very few from my office on my F/B why would I want to add them when I see them every day.