Emergency Dispatcher Fired For Facebook Drug Joke

kaptink writes "Dana Kuchler, a 21-year veteran of the West Allis Dispatch Department, was fired from her job for making jokes on her Facebook page about taking drugs. She appealed to an arbitrator, claiming the Facebook post was a joke, pointing out she had written 'ha' in it, and noting that urine and hair samples tested negative for drugs. The arbitrator said she should be entitled to go back to work after a 30-day suspension, but the City of West Allis complained that was not appropriate. Is posting bad jokes on Facebook a justifiable reason to give someone the boot?"

Comments

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not, but by the time it's sorted she'll be bankrupt

Of course it's justifiable -- we live in the age of corporate fear. There's no longer a need for anything to actually happen -- all that's required is for a corp to assert "fear of [whatever]" (litigation, disparagement of business, loss of competitive advantage) for them to justify any extension of control over their employees.

Just look at the way the bastards try to intrude into your home by telling you you'll be fired if your housemate doesn't stop smoking within 90 days. Why??? -- "fear of increased insurance costs".

Craven sons of bitches.

It all depends on what you mean ...

[golodh]

Speaking with a former President: it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

If you take the question as: "Is posting snarky content on Facebook about evading drugs testing sufficient grounds to disqualify you from your job, and hence set you up for justifiable dismissal?", the answer is obviously: "No.".

If you take the question as: "Is posting snarky content on Facebook about evading drugs testing on part of an emergency dispatcher sufficient ground to disqualify said dispatcher from her job", the answer would shift to: "Probably not".

However, if you were to take the question as: "Suppose you are a manager in charge of emergency services. Suppose you catch one of your employees, in a fairly critical position too, writing snarky stuff on Facebook about evading drugs testing. Is that a risk to you? Would it make YOU look bad if she did anything wrong in her job (however unrelated to actual substance abuse)?", then the answer is a definite: "Yes". For that reason said manager will face the choice of (a) actually looking into the matter, forming a personal judgement, and exposing himself and his career tot potential damage just to be fair to an employee or (b) simply firing her and getting a replacement. Which option do you think would make more sense from a CYA perspective and would also make said manager look good, competent, ruthless, and dedicated?

There are no bonus points for coming up with answer (b). So that particular dispatcher is hereby dispatched. Such is the power of new electronic media, classical all-American CYA considerations, and age-old guilt-by-association thinking.

Re:Freedom of speech should be a law ;)

[Trepidity]

In this case, the City of West Allis is a "government", not a "business", and its emergency dispatchers are government employees, not private employees in some sort of dispatching industry. The First Amendment has been held to apply to state and local governments since 1925, and applies to some extent even when the government is acting as employer.

Re:Sounds unreasonable

[TOGSolid]

Yep, the city made out like a bandit and got a convenient excuse.

This also happens to be exactly why I keep my Facebook free of anyone from work. People seem to think that they need to "friend" anyone they met even briefly and then wonder why it gets them into trouble. You can't be fired for things you said on your Facebook page if your page is set to private and nobody from work can read it. It's that damned simple.

Re:Freedom of speech should be a law ;)

[jonadab]

Wait, do you mean *on the job* freedom of speech, or only when you go home?

If the former, that would certainly change the nature of *my* job in fundamental ways.

I work at a public library. At work (and in the presence of the public), I'm not supposed to express an opinion on basically *anything* (well, anything of substance; I can talk about the weather). Religion, politics, history, education, science, you name it. This goes to extremes in my line of work. When a patron asks me for books on how the fall of Rome resulted in the creation of angels (yes, this is a real example), I'm supposed to try to help them find books on that, without comment. In practice this means books on angels and books on the history of Rome. I know very well that the books on the history of Rome won't say anything about the creation of angels and the books on angels won't say anything about the fall of Rome, but I cannot *tell* the patron this. I have to keep a straight face while I help them find the books.

So my job would be pretty radically different if on-the-job free speech were legally mandatory.