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Australian Workplace Tribunal Rules Facebook Unfriending Constitutes "Bullying"
An anonymous reader writes: Unfriending employees on Facebook and not saying good morning could constitute workplace bullying, an Australian workplace tribunal has ruled. Australia's Fair Work Commission decided that administrator Lisa Bird had bullied real estate agent Rachael Roberts after unfriending her from Facebook. The commission's deputy president Nicole Wells said the act showed a "lack of emotional maturity" and was "indicative of unreasonable behavior."
"The Fair Work Commission didn't find that unfriending someone on Facebook constitutes workplace bullying," Josh Bornstein, a lawyer at the firm Maurice Blackburn, told ABC News.
"What the Fair Work Commission did find is that a pattern of unreasonable behaviour, hostile behaviour, belittling behaviour over about a two-year period, which featured a range of different behaviours including berating, excluding and so on, constituted a workplace bullying."
Article title: Facebook 'unfriending' can constitute workplace bullying, Australian tribunal finds
Article content: Legal experts said the case did not mean that unfriending a colleague on Facebook would automatically constitute bullying.
"The Fair Work Commission didn't find that unfriending someone on Facebook constitutes workplace bullying," Josh Bornstein, a lawyer at the firm Maurice Blackburn, told ABC News.
"What the Fair Work Commission did find is that a pattern of unreasonable behaviour, hostile behaviour, belittling behaviour over about a two-year period, which featured a range of different behaviours including berating, excluding and so on, constituted a workplace bullying."
The title is misleading. The unfriending was part of a range of things that the one coworker did to her coworker.
The relevant quote, buried at the very end of the article:
"The Fair Work Commission didn't find that unfriending someone on Facebook constitutes workplace bullying," Josh Bornstein, a lawyer at the firm Maurice Blackburn, told ABC News.
"What the Fair Work Commission did find is that a pattern of unreasonable behaviour, hostile behaviour, belittling behaviour over about a two-year period, which featured a range of different behaviours including berating, excluding and so on, constituted a workplace bullying."
More or less, unfriending someone, in and of itself, is not bullying, nor was that the ruling. The unfriending that happened in this case was merely an example of hostile or otherwise unfriendly behavior aimed at the plaintiff by the defendant. Even so, none of the examples of "belittling behavior" strike me as significant enough to involve the court system. The very notion that the courts are being called in to resolve a personal spat strikes me as utterly ridiculous.
If you read the article you will find the it says the EXACT OPPOSITE of the Slashdot headline.
So the key statement is, "The Fair Work Commission didn't find that unfriending someone on Facebook constitutes workplace bullying," which is the exact opposite of what the Slashdot summary says.
At most, unfriending someone on Facebook in this particular instance was merely another action in a series of actions that as a whole constituted systemic bullying.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Reminds me of the Beavis and Butthead episode, Sexual Harrassment, where they sued a classmate because she was always "like giving them stiffies and stuff".
Yeah. Slashdot likes to use sensationalist headlines to get clicks. And it works.
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Keep up the good work.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Fortunately, the answer is "Yes".
Fanatically anti-fanatical