Personal behaviour vs employment

[stui magpie]

^

That's your opinion, mine is different.

Actions have consequences, positive and negative. People need to take responsibility for them.

[think positive]

I agree, there has to be a line, or an employee could do anything and get away with it, some of the stuff teachers have been fired for is a good example. Sleeping with underage kids for a start.

[stui magpie]

^

The thing that David doesn't seem to get is that employers don't have carte blanche to sack people for whatever they like, we do have Labour laws and Fair Work Australia is the adjudicator for the majority of us. A termination of employment has to meet several tests including procedural fairness and whether it was harsh, unjust or unreasonable and what these constitute is informed by decades of case law and precedent.

People going into high public profile, high paying roles such as politicians or professional sports people don't have these same protections and need to just use their brains.

[think positive]

[David]

I don’t know why you think I’m not aware of that. Clearly many hard-fought workplace protections exist; but social media posting still seems to be an area with a lot of grey areas, and it’s clear that people in non-high-profile positions can be and have been sacked for such offences.

[stui magpie]

Some will have, many more will have just got warnings but you don't hear about them. IMHO the system works fine as it is.

As you may have noticed, I use a pseudonym on social media, I also have my privacy settings turned up and my employer isn't named. If you're stupid enough to post inappropriate stuff to the whole world under your own name you need to own it and any consequences.

And, in regard to the comment about "hard won" I'd give less credit to the unions than to the uniquely antipodean attitudes of Aus and NZ to come up with a system of conciliation and arbitration.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/bosses-and-workers-in-australia/6407092

The article is very thin and not totally accurate but it's a reasonable potted summary. Unions existed all over the world, but Aus and NZ are unique in their legislative approach to IR

[K]

[stui magpie]

[Bucks5]

Being in the public eye links their job/employer and their personal behaviour whether they like it or not.

You don't see news stories mentioning the employment of say a MacDonalds worker unless the incident is related to MacDonalds, but they always lead with the person's employer/job if it is something high profile, eg. Rugby (or Australian Wallaby) star Israel Folau did x, Last night Collingwood star Brodie Grundy...., Labour Minister Robin Scott was caught..., etc.

[K]

"A News Corp report claims that the potential cost of paying out Folau ($4 million) plus an expected operating loss of $8 million could give Rugby Australia a $12 million black hole for the financial year that would bring it to “the precipice of insolvency”.
...

News Corp reported that Rugby Australia has calculated the prospect of paying Folau a $2 million severance, in the case of a looming legal defeat."

[K]

Rugby journo: "But twice now he has put the Waratahs and Australian rugby players through the grinder and instead of walking away he has armed himself with lawyers and readied for a fight."


He has every right to "arm himself with lawyers". Even criminals have a right to have their day in court, with a lawyer.

[David]

^ Absolutely.

Bucks5, the link is there, but it’s a superficial one. If a high-profile person drink-drives and their employer is mentioned in the newspaper, no intelligent person thinks that reflects in any way on the nature of the organisation that employs them. But if an organisation can become sufficiently worried about what stupid people might think, and these – quite possibly imaginary – stupid people become the benchmark whereby such things are judged, then we can have a situation like we have now: one ruled by fear and sorely lacking in common sense or moral courage.

[K]

"Rugby Australia’s nightmare continues with Israel Folau’s hearing set to drag on until Tuesday next week as lawyers from both sides demanded more time to argue their cases."

[Morrigu]

BREAKING NEWS Rugby player Israel Folau has been found to have committed a "high-level breach" of the player's code of conduct over some of his social media posts.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/rugby-union/folau-hearing-concludes-but-no-verdict-reached-20190507-p51kzw.html

[stui magpie]

^

Interesting scenario. I can't see the circumstances where I'd actually take my employer to court to get my job back, I tend to work on mutual trust and if that's not there I'd rather be somewhere else. If I thought I was wrongly dismissed, I'd go them for cash, but i wouldn't want to work somewhere I wasn't welcome.

If he wins, he may get to go back to his club but I'm tipping he'll never be selected for Australia again, so maybe smarter to follow the money and go play overseas for a club in Europe if League has closed their doors to him.