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New Zealand Court Orders Facebook Disclosure To Employer
An anonymous reader writes with a story out of New Zealand: "Gina Kensington was sacked by Air New Zealand earlier this year following a dispute over sick leave she took to care for her sister. She said she did not misuse sick leave, and went to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) seeking reinstatement. Air New Zealand responded by demanding to see her Facebook and bank details. Kensington refused, saying it did not have that information when it dismissed her and that 'it is well accepted in New Zealand there are general and legal privacy expectations about people's personal and financial information.'"
At least in the U.S., Facebook isn't keen on employers getting access to employees' Facebook account details.
WILL be used against you.
What is surprising here us the court is making a summary judgement as to who is guilty until the prove their innocence. The unbelievable stretch in that allowing the airline access to information they didn't have in making their judgement to fire someone, as now somehow being proof of validity for firing them, is shockingly biased towards the airline and against the individual ie. we didn't know that but that's the reason why we sacked them. All that was required and should have been allowed was the companies policy regarding sick leave and the evidence obtained by the company to determine that she broke that policy, no further court ordered investigation should have been allowed.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"That's fine. However, I suspect the company has ulterior motives behind this decision; therefore I would like to have all emails by the director and finance departments to go through with a lawyer and an accountant to prove their motives. If they have nothing to hide then they shouldn't object, and it's only fair since you believe handing over passwords and examining *MY* private communications with any party to be fair play. I look forward to receiving the company emails. Regards."
Ha!
This is why courts are setup in tiers. This is why there are appeals. Because a stupid judge somewhere can't think hard enough to realize why this is dumb and the implications of the precedent they're setting. Luckily, the appeals courts generally sort this thing out before it goes too far off the rails.
What if... What if ... What if...
In an alternate universe where certain facts are known for certain, then sure there may be a problem. Over here, we can make up whatever stories we want about these alternate universes, but they don't affect us.
If the coworker takes off at a critical time without notice (did that actually happen?), then the job will be poorly done and you should raise the issue to management. Point out that the department was understaffed, and it's management's responsibility to have the right talent in-house at the right time.
Or, you take home extra pay pulling overtime picking up the slack, which costs management more than regular time, so they will eventually notice.
Or, you refuse unpaid overtime or have previous commitments that you cannot break and let your boss know this. If your boss can force you to come in to work even though you've got Laker's tickets, find another job.
You shouldn't particularly care if coworkers take time off or not - care about getting the job done on time, under budget, and at good quality. If you can't do this, care about whether it's your fault. Don't let your boss put unreasonable demands on you - that will only shift the blame to you when you can't pull off a miracle. Let them know about problems as they arise, and don't accept blame for things you can't control.
Holding yourself to a high standard of professionalism will work out better in the long run than putting "staying employed" ahead of everything else in your life. It may cost you in the immediate short-term, but the total returns over time far outweigh the immediate costs.
Exactly which is why I automatically think something hinky is going on when we see a case like this, because there are tons of dumbasses fired every day and the reason they don't make headlines is it takes the company 2 seconds to show they fucked up constantly. A bad employee will give you enough rope to hang them several times over, no need to get into FB or anything else as their behavior on site should be enough to get them shitcanned, which makes me want to know what the REST of the story is with this case.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Someone tipped them off that she wasn't caring for her sister and was using it like a vacation. To what extent we don't know.
An argument of 'I was smart and there's no way you could have known what I was up to, so you can't have fired me for that' is exceptionally child like.idea.
The argument of "You have no right to invade my privacy" is not a childlike idea.
The importance here isn't whether this particular individual has actually taken care of her sister or gone on vacation. The question is, does the employer have the right to invade the employee's privacy for any reason.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
We hear this all the time. "You don't want to work for this company!" An entire judgement against a massive company as the result of one news article. Often these one news articles are the result of one stupid HR person in one small part of a small office and in an attempt to save face they took their actions to the extreme.
Funny how we pass judgement based on the experience of 0.01% of the employees of the company.
Funny how we pass judgement when we've heard only an article which covers one side of the story (I'm sure a company doesn't routinely fire all employees who take leave without some thought that it was improper).
Funny how a post like yours always somehow is deemed insightful.
The only thing really certain here is that this IS a company that this person wants to work for, or she wouldn't have taken them to the tribunal to get re-instated.
Airlines are infamous for sacking stewardesses that get old, pregnant or put on enough weight for them to stop resembling fashion magazine models.
Having flown recently, I can assure you this unjust policy has been thoroughly done away with.
=kw= lurkin' to please