Fired for looking at gun web sites

[Old Fashioned]

A man in Pennsylvania was fired for violating the company's internet policy which prohibits accessng "offensive" or "inapropriate" material. The policy does not specifically prohibit gun sites. The man filed suite and his lawyer clained discrimination because of medical condition. Districk Judge sided with company saying not enough evidence of unlawful discrimination. The guy should be beating his lawyer vigorously about the head and shoulders. The company set a precedent by allowing numerous other employees to visit non work related work sites with no disciplinary action being taken. That is where his lawyer should have claimed discrimination. What do some of you students of law think? This is a link to the story. :confused: :confused: :confused:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/09/taking_liberties/entry5373168.shtml

[Dial 1911 for Help]

I think they have the company has the right to curtail access to any site they want (providing the access is during working hours, from a company owned facility, or using company owned equipment) AND TO SET THAT FORTH IN THEIR PUBLISHED POLICY. Gun sites are not offensive, and to fire the guy for doing something not prohibited in the policy, especially since the policy did explicitly cover permissible Internet use, might be a violation of labor law. IANAL

[Old Fashioned]

That is exactly what I was thinking. By not taking any action against other employees that visited non work related web sites the company set a precedence. The policy just prohibited offensive or inapropriate sites. An employer has a right to set company policies but those policies have to be enforced in a uniform manner. An employer cannot pick and choose when to enforce policies. The attorney missed the boat. There are plenty of grounds for a discrimination case under federal labor law. Their choice of pursuing discrimination because of medical condition was really weak even if that was the case. It seems that he made a poor choice in picking an attorney.

[Dial 1911 for Help]

Well, not only the unevenness of application but deciding after the fact that something is grounds for firing when you've distributed to the employees a policy that purports to list the grounds for firing and you didn't do any of the stuff listed.

[Patriotic]

Not all states are “Right to Work” states which means an employer can fire you without cause, you are employed at the will of the employer. I ran into this while living in NY State where the company I worked for had a tendency to fire female employees who were pregnant or who had just given birth. Their rationale was that having a new baby would require additional time off. Normally that would trigger a law suite but since the employer gave no reason for the firing, there was no grounds for discrimination. Likewise in this case, if Pennsylvania is not a “Right to Work” state the employer can fire you without any reason.

[Old Fashioned]

There is a lot of misunderstanding about what a "right to work" state is. If you look at right to work laws, what you find is that they have nothing to do with hiring or firing. They simply mean that a requirement to join a union, group or organization cannot be a condition for employment. Workers still have a right to strike but they cannot prevent other workers from going to work. Federal Labor Law states that all employees are considered to be "hire at will" unless they have a labor contract with the employer or have a individual contract for employment. Without one or the other, they are considered to be "hire at will" irregardless of the state being officially a right to work state or not. HOWEVER, there are many, many federal labor laws that employers have to comply with and when they fire someone as in this case, they have to be very careful that they do not violate any of those laws. Another thing to remember is that most people in this situation do not know their rights. If they complain to the labor board, the labor board being a state board almost always sides with the employer. But that is not the end of it. The employee (ex) can appeal the decision which usually goes against the worker, then can request a board hearing, which will probably go against the worker, then , at that point should get a GOOD labor lawyer who should request a hearing before a Federal Administrative Law Judge. At that point every thing changes. It is totally out of the hands of the state and that judge will look only at the law and will look at things the state boards will not even consider. There have been many state labor boards that have been handed their heads on a platter by these federal judges. This particular case, in my opinion, was totally mishandled by this attorney. Many, many employers violate provisions of Federal Labor Law and get away with it because workers do not know their rights, do not understand right to work laws, and, if they complain to the state department of labor, think that it is all over if the local labor board goes against them. In this particular case, if it went before a Federal Administrative Law Judge, the first thing the judge would request would be the employee handbook. I would add that if an employer has established policies or rules that employees must comply with, Federal Labor Law states that the employer must have an employee handbook that contains all of those policies or rules and that every employee must be given a copy of the handbook, and while employers may change the policies or rules from time to time, federal law is very specific in how those changes may be made and enforced. In this case the employer stated that the employee had violated company policy.

[piobaireachd]

I'm the network admin for the county. We block many sites including this one and m1911 at our firewall.

As much as I enjoy both sites, they are not business related and therefore not allowed according to our directives.

[Dial 1911 for Help]

I'm the network admin for the county. We block many sites including this one and m1911 at our firewall. As much as I enjoy both sites, they are not business related and therefore not allowed according to our directives.
Which is absolutely fine. If you allowed viewing of left leaning sites but punished people for looking at gun sites, or published an internet usage policy, then terminated someone for doing something on the internet not proscribed in the policy, then you SHOULD be in trouble, but your policy is politically neutral and spelled out in advance.

Ideally, I don't believe that the policy should even have to be politically neutral in the case of a private employer. (At the county, your situation is different, anyone whose paycheck is funded by tax dollars shouldn't be allowed to discriminate because those tax dollars were confiscated from people across the entire spectrum.) My benevolent attitude doesn't extend to liberal employers who discriminate against conservative employees or customers, because it's liberals that are always discovering new classes of people that need protection from discrimination. So while the rules are wrong, the liberals should still have to live by them for the moment because they own them.