An administration worker was sacked for labelling her job ‘boring’ on Facebook, it has been claimed.
Kimberley Swann, 16, alleged her employer, Ivell Marketing and Logistics, sacked her for making the comment even though she never explicitly named the company. She had only been at the company for three weeks.
A spokesman for Ivell Marketing and Logistics, based in Clacton, Essex, said: “Ivell Marketing is a small close-knit family company and it is very important that all the staff work together in harmony. Swann made comments about her job and the company on Facebook and then invited other staff members to read her comments. Had Swann put up a poster on the staff notice board making the same comments and invited other staff to read it, there would have been the same result.”
He added Swann’s “display of disrespect and dissatisfaction undermined the [working] relationship and made it untenable”.
However the TUC’s general secretary, Brendan Barber, said employers needed to lighten up. “Employees need to be more aware of how they protect their privacy online, and employers need to recognise they employ real people, not robots, and should grow slightly thicker skins,” he said.
“Employers and employees need to sit down together, through unions or other consultations, and work out a reasonable policy on what is expected of staff in their conduct online.”
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