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25% of managers have fired workers for e-mail abuse
The threats of lawsuits are prompting more Companies to fire
employees for e-mail abuse.
CBS news notes that internal distribution of offensive material
is a violation of employer codes of ethics and that hundreds of
thousands (13 percent) of employers had to go to court and battle an
email-related lawsuit:
"Heidi Arace and Norma Yetsko, both longtime employees with
PNC Bank, were fired after forwarding jokes on their company's
e-mail."
Employees do not have First Amendment rights because employers
are private institutions and they are free to restrict speech to
prohibit offensive, defamatory, or embarrassing e-mails. This
Virginia company fired 23 employees, noting all e-mail "must be
consistent with conventional standards of ethical and proper
conduct, behavior, and manners and are not to be used to create,
forward, or display any offensive or disruptive messages."
This article
notes that a huge number of managers in the United States have fired
employees for inappropriate e-mails.
It notes that employers are responsible for what their employees
do during work hours and that there is an epidemic of lawsuit
exposure when workers use company resources to injure or defame
others:
"Twenty-four per cent of organizations have had employee
e-mail subpoenaed and 15 per cent of companies have gone to
court to battle lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail"
The article also notes that blogging is a major concern and that
many companies prohibit blogging on company time:
"Bloggers who work for private employers in
employment-at-will states can be fired for just about any
reason, including blogging at home on their own time or at the
office during work hours...
Some of the risks associated with blogging include copyright
infringement, invasion of privacy, defamation, sexual
harassment, trade secret theft, security breaches and
productivity drains"
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